


The Lost Prince

by were1993



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M, princes & knights, violence in chp 18, will update pairings as we go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 22:12:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 41,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7775614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/were1993/pseuds/were1993
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven Princes, four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. </p><p>When the Crowned Prince Choi Seungcheol goes missing, everything goes amiss. Xu Minghao is to be knighted during this turbulent time. Ready to serve the Prince of the Eastern Territories, Minghao finds out that one's 命运 (fate) doesn't always go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Seven Princes, four territories, three districts, **two urban legends** and one crown. _

\---

Urban Legend: The Lost Prince

Kim Mingyu was an idiot. Don’t ever let him forget that. 

Having pissed off the local gang for the _fifth time this week_ , Mingyu reckons they were bound to get smarter at some point. So when they surround him in a quieter part of the market place, Mingyu wonders whether he’ll be able to talk himself out of this one. The gang leader reaches into his pouch and pulls out two knives. Huh, probably not. 

“Mingyu-ssi, I thought we agreed not to bother each other,” the leader hisses, spitting out the formalities in a mocking tone. Rage colors the man’s face in splotchy shades of red and purple. He tosses the knives from hand to hand with practiced ease. “When I do my business, I expect no _street rat_ to disrupt it.” 

“For a man with such high status, I didn’t expect him to being business with _children_ ,” Mingyu mocks back. “Our country must be in better shape than I thought if we expect children to have money.” 

“Their parents owed a debt and it’s only fair for the brats to pay in labor,” the gangster growls. He grips the knives tightly and holds them out in warning. “What you can’t pay in coins, you pay in labor.” 

“Woah,” Mingyu exclaims in exaggerated shock. “I had no idea that a debt of _forty_ coins meant selling the kids into slavery and prostitution!” 

“There’s _interest_ to any debt!” another man yells. He pulls out his own knife, and this set off a cascade as the rest of the lackeys pull out theirs. Mingyu counts ten men and eleven knives. He’s definitely not talking his way out of this one. 

“Well any debt that accumulates over four thousand coins of interest in the span of a week might be _slightly_ ridiculous,” Mingyu laughs. He’s slowly getting a little nervous, eyes shifting for an escape that he really can’t find. 

This part of the market led to the outskirts of the city. It wasn’t a well-used path as it was too uneven for trading carts and too narrow for traveling parties. Unless some lone traveler was coming into the city from the east, no one set foot here. So there was very little chance of slipping away and a very high chance that no one would find his body. 

“Things are getting harder,” the leader sighs and he seems just a tad remorseful. “Ever since the princes started fighting for the crown, no territory has had it easy.” 

“Well, don’t they say that Prince Seungcheol might not be dead?” Mingyu mentions. He’s a little desperate to continue the conversation until he can find his ticket out. “After all, no one found a body.” 

“Hah,” the gangster scoffs. He crouches like he’s ready to pounce. “That’s just like saying that the Lost Prince is a real person.” 

Mingyu frowns. There were many people who believed in the Lost Prince, just like there were many people who believed the Crowned Prince, Choi Seungcheol, was still alive. Mingyu may or may not believe in both. 

“But he is.” 

Mingyu jumps and so do many of the gang members. 

“The Lost Prince _is_ an actual person,” the newcomer says firmly with an apparent accent. It’s not an accent from any of the mainland territories, maybe the Eastern territories? “A prince with no chance for the crown, but a prince with royal blood nonetheless.” 

Mingyu turns to face the newcomer. It was probably a bad idea since the gangster leader was still brandishing his knives, but he wanted to see this person. No one has had such conviction about the Lost Prince since his best friend. He’s not sure what he expected but the slight man with a large travel pack wasn’t it. 

The other man was _definitely_ from the Eastern Territories. His hair and clothes were clean and practical, militaristic almost. The way he carried himself was very typical of a solider, chest out, shoulder back and chin leveled. But, _but_ , this Eastern man also leaned his weight to his left. He was used to balancing something heavy strapped to his left hip. A clear show of broadsword training, and nowadays, the only people who received such training were _knights_. 

Mingyu gapes in realization. This man was a knight-to-be. This man was the main character to the knighting ceremony in a couple days. The rumors on the streets were that this man was to be the knight of Prince Wen Junhui of the East. 

And this man was going to be Mingyu’s escape route. 

“Right? The Lost Prince is definitely not an urban legend as these uneducated gentleman are suggesting!” Mingyu declares. All eyes focus back on him. “How they must not know of anything that happened during the Great Western Wars!” 

“Don’t try to distract with storybook tales,” the gang leader snarls. “And _you_ , get out of here! This is none of your business!” 

“I will continue on my way then,” the Easterner concedes. Mingyu frowns. He expected some heroic stupidity from a knight-in-training. After all, was Mingyu not a damsel in distress? No? 

Without hesitation, the knight-to-be walks right through the crowd—Mingyu snorts, typical of palace bred stuck ups. No one tries to stop him. While they might not have realized his identity as Mingyu did, the gangsters could sense something dangerous. Mingyu almost pouts. His escape was walking away quite unaware of Mingyu’s annoyance. 

“Hah, who the fuck gives a damn about lost or dead princes?” the leader scoffs as the Eastern walks past him and out of the circle. “Either way their mothers are whores and princes incompetent. This whole battle for the throne might be a good thing. Have them kill each other off.” 

The Easterner stops. 

Mingyu cheers on the inside. He knew he could rely on their lovely gangster leader to say the right things! 

“Favor the just, align with our own and protect those in need,” the Easterner says. The gang leader turns to address the other, probably an insult or two to get him to keep moving, and finds instead a fist in his face. The Easterner eases back into a relaxed position and shrugs off his travelers pack. “As I am honor bound, I cannot stand here and listen to you lot insult the Royal Family.” 

Clutching his bloody nose on the floor, the gang leader looks up in fear. Mingyu could see the dots connecting in the man’s brain. But before the leader could get a word out, the lackeys—oh bless their souls—roar in dissent and charge with their knives held high. 

Living in hostile neighborhoods all his life, Kim Mingyu has seen many fights. He’s seen duels of the best trained, brawls at the corner of the streets and even one-sided beatings in dark alleyways. In all his years, he’s never quite seen anyone fight like _this_. 

The Easterner was so light on his feet that it looked like he was flying, swooping down to land heavy blows only to flutter away before the enemy could return the favor. Mingyu knew he probably should take this chance to run away—there was a clear path back into the main marketplace _right there_ calling out to him, but he was mesmerized. Even with ten against one, the Easterner fends them off so effortlessly. Mingyu has never seen anyone move so beautifully as though each movement was as natural as breathing. 

He breaks out of his revere as a lackey gets thrown past him. Mingyu knows he needs to make his escape now. So he takes a large step towards the side street he knows will get him to the main roads. He’s not too sure what happened—all he heard was an accented voice yelling something like _watch out_ or _get down_ or something. Next thing he knew, Mingyu was deafened by a loud blast and flew forward from the force of an explosion. 

The next couple of moments were a blur but he knows he collided with someone. Together, they roll out of the smoke and down the street. Whoever was underneath him took most of the impact and even in his discombobulated state, Mingyu knows to roll off the person quickly. 

Mingyu’s entire body was sore and his ears ringing. He hadn’t expected for the gang members to dish out a miniature hand grenade. From his time just observing them, Mingyu knew they had them, but to actually use them? Mingyu lets his head fall back and hit the ground. If they wanted him that badly, they could take him. 

“Hey, are you okay?”

Mingyu opens one eye and sees two worried ones staring back at him. The knight-to-be was the warm body he collided into and cushioned his fall. Huh, go figure. There was a little bit of heroic stupidity in this one.

“I think you hit your head and you’re bleeding—” the Easterner babbles. His intonations were all wrong for Capitol speak. Mingyu feels something trickle down his forehead and groans at the thought of it leaving a scar. His handsome face was the only thing that kept him from starving sometimes. The Easterner mistakes it for pain and quickly moves to assess the cut with gentle hands. 

Mingyu doesn’t know how to describe it, but the moment the other’s hands touched his bloody forehead, it was like he could finally think clearly. There was no pain and no not-understanding. It was like he finally saw some kind of truth that shined brightly all around him. The Easterner looks mildly horrified and touches his own bleeding lip. It was then Mingyu realized that the light was _actually_ all around him.

The light carved out a seal in the dirt around him and the knight-to-be. Mingyu squints. It looked familiar, almost like the crest at the top of the palace gates. He yelps when the Easterner grabs his right hand and pulls it up to eye level to stare at his pinky. There was a small bruise with a slight indent. It looked almost like someone’s tooth knocked into it.

“The Lost Prince,” Xu Minghao whispers. Mingyu looks up. The other man never told Mingyu his name, but Mingyu _knew_ it somehow. Minghao takes his hand more gently this time and presses a kiss against the first knuckle of his pinky. “My Prince.”

This was his knight, and Mingyu was terrified of how sure he was of this fact.

 ---

The end or continue?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The knighting ceremony must still happen.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

The Knights to the Princes: Of the Sixth and to-be Fourth

“Honestly I think it’s a pity that Seo Myungho ended up with the Lost Prince,” Boo Seungkwan, Knight of the Sixth Prince, says. He’s known as the Court Gossip. It’s both an insult and statement of open admiration. After all, _nothing_ gets past his ears. 

“Isn’t it out of turn for us to discuss this?” Jeon Wonwoo, a knight-to-be, frowns. 

Seungkwan scoffs, “What? Discuss the truth?” 

“Well, for one, I would not have minded being the Lost Prince’s knight,” Wonwoo shrugs. He fastens the knot button on his new coat—a traditional Eastern military uniform. “He’s still royalty.” 

“It was in the works that the Easterner was going to go with Prince Moon Junhui,” Seungkwan sighs. He taps the table in a frustrated staccato rhythm. “It would have been the perfect pair. They could have defended the boarders so well together; the Prince with his strategic prowess and his Knight with his formidable fighting skills.” 

“You care about this nation than most people give you credit,” Wonwoo smiles. He finally finishes buttoning his coat. Wonwoo moves to the large mirror to adjust his sword and other little accessories. It is a handsome uniform. A little tight here and there because it was originally meant for someone else, but still properly fitting as the palace seamstresses were fast and efficient. Still it was something Wonwoo never expected to wear. 

“Of course, hyung, just because I spend most of my time in the Western territories doesn’t mean I don’t care for my Eastern brothers,” Seungkwan pouts. In the mirror, Wonwoo could see the way the knight scrunched up his face in mock offense. “I just want everything to go back to how it was.” 

Wonwoo pauses. It was a wistful hope. 

Ah, the palace with the Crowned Prince Choi Seungcheol had been such a good time. The king-to-be had been such a pleasure to be around and he demanded harmony among his brothers. It had been the first time in history that _all_ their territories were at peace with each other. Sure, the early time of the Crowned Prince’s rule had been rough, but as the years went by, it became the Golden Age. And it should have stayed like that for many _many_ years. 

No one expected the young Crowned Prince to be taken from them so soon. Everything went wrong after that. 

“The Eastern territories are starting to whisper rebellion, and there’s only so much Prince Junhui can do before he answers to his own blood,” Seungkwan begins gently. Wonwoo could hear the pain in the knight’s voice. “The rebel—no, more like terrorist groups in the Western territories are getting bolder, especially now with so much attention diverted to the conflicts between the Eastern and Northern Territories. Our dear Second Prince is trying his best to reign in the Capitol, and he’s only succeeding by a hairbreadth because the Third Prince and the Church are rallied behind him. Our youngest prince has thrown his support to the Second Prince. A wise move, especially with him being at most disadvantaged in the succession. But that’s barely keeping our country together.” 

“And now we have the Lost Prince,” Wonwoo chuckles. He really couldn’t believe it. Never in a thousand years did he imagine that his childhood friend would have ended up as the Lost Prince. Leaving the commoner life and Mingyu had been the hardest thing for Wonwoo to do, but at the time, he knew it was something he had to do. If only he had known that a Prince had been so close to him—Wonwoo wonders whether _he_ would have been the Knight to the Lost Prince. 

“Yes, the Lost Prince,” Seungkwan says deadpan. “Pleasant little—well, okay, he’s really tall—fellow. Pretty much in full denial about his royal heritage, and the _easiest_ target in the world. If he didn’t have a knight as competent as Seo Myungho, the _Lost Prince_ would really be _lost_ forever.” 

Wonwoo couldn’t help the full bodied laughs that exploded. Yes, ah, he could see it. Kim Mingyu could be a little one track minded at times. If he believed he _wasn’t_ the Lost Prince, there was no amount of outside influence that could convince him. Wonwoo wonders how Mingyu was after all these years. Had he found a place to live finally? Had he scattered his mother’s ashes into the ocean like she had wanted him to? Had he forgotten about Jeon Wonwoo? 

“Well, enough depressing talk!” Seungkwan exclaims brightly. “Today’s the day, our Jeon Wonwoo joins us in knighthood!” 

Wonwoo smiles as he surveys his reflection one more time. It was a little hollow, but what can he do? He wasn’t meant to be the Knight of Prince Wen Junhui of the Eastern Territories, but with all the ceremonial build up and hype, the Eastern Prince needed a knight, especially since his original knight-to-be was now bound to another. 

Wonwoo was giving up his choice to save the Royal Family’s face. It should be an honor, but he can’t find it in himself to be proud.

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And nooow it's gonna get a little out of order. So uh, if the next couple of chapters seemed to have occurred before or after the knighting ceremony uuuh, just bear with me LOL


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Lost Prince meets one of his brothers.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, **two urban legends** and one crown. _

\---

The Prince and the Urban Legend: The Sixth Prince and Lost Prince

The Sixth Prince, His Royal Highness Chwe Vernon Hansol, found himself in a little bit of a predicament. More of, he was staring right at a predicament: his older brother, the Lost Prince, refusing to wear his ring. 

The ring was the mark of royal blood. They were made so no one outside the family could wear it. But his brother’s ring was a little special, just like Vernon’s own ring. Their rings were a little smaller in size and were only meant to fit on their pinky fingers. A simple silver band with a unique engraving—a different one for each brother. 

Vernon’s own band was engraved with the silhouette of a mountain, and the only other ring with the same engraving was on the little finger of his knight, Boo Seungkwan. 

Now, Vernon did understand the shock. After all, he was also shocked. Just two days ago, Vernon came to the Capitol expecting to attend his other brother’s knighting ceremony. Instead, he was here, watching the original knight of Prince Junhui wrestling the Lost Prince to wear the ring. 

“ _No_ , I don’t want to!” Kim Mingyu argues. Vernon watches his older brother twist and turn away from his knight with slight amusement and worry. He’s seen Xu Minghao’s battle stats. There really was no winning against a knight of that caliber. 

“You are _royalty_ ,” Minghao hisses, holding tight on Mingyu’s right wrist. Mingyu has his fist closed stubbornly in clear refusal. “If you can’t _act_ like one, you can at least try to _look_ like one!” 

Vernon does laugh quietly at this. If nothing else, Kim Mingyu looked like royalty. Somehow his knight forced him into a navy blue ceremonial uniform with gold trimming, and Mingyu looks stunning. His hair was still a mess and the top couple of buttons were open, but it didn’t take away from the handsome figure he made. 

“It’s going to be the first time you’re meeting the rest of your brothers, and you’re not going to _wear your ring_?” Minghao growls. “The Sixth Prince is _right there_. Can’t you not be embarrassing for once?” 

“Oh, you heard me?” Vernon blinks. He dispels the camouflage illusion and steps off the shoulder rest of the arm chair. Mingyu jumps at his sudden appearance. 

“I was aware of your presence from the start, Prince Vernon,” Minghao informs respectfully. He doesn’t let go of Mingyu’s wrist even as he bows. “I wouldn’t be able to protect the prince very well if I couldn’t even see through simple camouflage magic.” 

“Ah, I see,” Vernon acknowledges. Oh yeah, battle stats had the magic stats too. He wouldn’t want to put his own Seungkwan’s stats next to this guy’s. Well, to be fair, there were very few knights who had strong affinities towards both Eastern and Formal magic. Vernon takes a moment to think about this. His older brother really hit the jackpot, and it might be the only thing that’ll keep Kim Mingyu alive through the fight for the crown. 

“The…Sixth Prince of the Western Territories?” Mingyu asks hesitantly. 

Vernon turns to face his brother and smiles, “The one and only.” 

It was a weird moment for Vernon. He’s seen commoners look at him with adoration. He’s seen Capitol folk stare at him in apprehension. But never before has a _brother_ of his looked at him with those eyes—a little bit star struck and fearful. 

Then again, he did accept his lost brother into the family much faster than anyone else did. Vernon hadn’t even meet Kim Mingyu before he started calling him _Mingyu-hyung_ in his mind. Seungkwan mentioned that his complete acceptance for another prince in the running for the crown was strange and unexpected. Vernon sighs inwardly. Okay, maybe he was a little strange. 

“If I am the Lost Prince,”—“You _are_ ,” the knight huffs in exasperation—“that would mean that you are my,” Mingyu says slowly. He seems to be waiting for Vernon to rebuttal him, but when that doesn’t come, Mingyu finishes more confidently. “You are my younger brother. I’m the hyung.” 

“Yep,” Vernon agrees simply. “You are the hyung.” 

“Which means,” Mingyu continues. He has a slight mischievous smile. “I can call you Vernon.” 

“Vernon, Hansol, hey you,” Vernon lists. “I pretty much respond to all of those. Oh, sometimes the other brothers call me Sixlet.” 

“Sixlet?” 

“Oh, uh, here,” Vernon hums. He searches his pockets until he find the little packet of colorful candies. With surprising accuracy, Vernon tosses it to his older brother. “Candy from the Western Territories. They’re called Sixlets. So yeah.” 

Mingyu stares at the little packet in his hand before breaking out into hysterical laughter. Vernon’s eyes go wide with shock. Sure it was joke, but he wasn’t aware that it was this funny.

“Sixlet! _Sixlet!_ ” Mingyu shrieks in laughter. It takes him a while to calm down, but when he does, Mingyu flashes the most charming smile at Vernon. “I get it. You’re the Sixth Prince and those are Western candies. I get it!”

“I—yes?” Vernon responds. 

“Sixlet,” Mingyu repeats. He looks oddly pleased. “I can do that. Sixlet.” 

Vernon is completely confused until Mingyu shrugs off his knight’s hold and slings a friendly arm over his shoulders. 

“Sixlet, I’m your hyung.” 

And in history books, they say this was when the Sixth Prince accepted the Lost Prince. In reality, this was when the Kim Mingyu accepted his younger brother—and indirectly, his royal heritage.

\---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UUUUUUUUUUGH, so i don't know what symbols to use for everyone?!?!?! I might change them until I like them? So uh maybe Vernon's symbol will be different two days from now HAHAHAHA (someonehelpme) 
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's go back to the beginning.

**_Seven Princes_** _, four territories, three districts, two urban legends_ **_and one crown._ **

\---

Seven Princes and One Crown: Tall Tales and Some Truth

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom at the center of the world. In order to appease his territories, the King of the Kingdom gave an heir to each territory he conquered. 

His first son took after his father: an adventurer. But this wild heart refused to focus on the Court or the politics involved. So he took his knight and fled. No one has seen him since. 

The second son took after his father: a romantic. So when he fell in love with a commoner, he turned on his crown. He married his love and left without even a backwards glance. To this day, he’s still at the house a top the Unsurpassable Mountains with his love. 

The third son also took after his father: a responsible heart. He took to the crown with a passionate promise to help the people. He would take the extra steps to bring all the territories together and unite the world at its center. Touched, his father, the King, declared him the First Prince, the _Crowned_ Prince. 

The Second Prince, unlike his brothers, took after his mother: beautiful and sharp of tongue. He was the rose of the palace; more beautiful than the princesses that pursued him. Unlike the First Prince, the Second Prince had no militaristic ambitions and no interest in the pursuit of knowledge. His heart was in diplomacy and all the politics that followed it. 

The Third Prince took after no one and devoted himself to God and the Church. Gentle and fair, he left the Court to develop his relationship with the Holy Spirit. He would not forsake his family, loving his brothers too much, but he swore off the crown. He was a man of God. 

The Fourth Prince took the Eastern territories with a steady hand. He was born with Eastern blood and was a man of great military prowess. There was a joke in the Court that the Eastern territories were only quiet because of the Fourth Prince’s love for his eldest brother. It was a joke many chuckled to nervously. There was too much truth for anyone but the First Prince to laugh carelessly to. 

The Fifth Prince took after his mother and threw himself into the pursuit of knowledge. He desired the power to create what others could not. The First Prince fully supported his younger brother’s pursuit, fitting him with the best of the best. It was these arts that the Fifth Prince flourished and found his home not in the Court. 

There was a prince rumored to have been born among the chaos of the Western Wars, but no one is too sure of the truth. In the Court, they have no name for him. In the streets, they call him the Lost Prince. A prince with right to the throne by blood but not by the line of succession. 

The Sixth Prince took the Western territories with New Age philosophy. He was of Western blood and it showed. Much less serious than his brothers, the Sixth Prince was a casual ruler who loved the arts and music much more than paperwork and networking. That was not to say the younger prince was sloppy or negligent, just less traditional. 

The Seventh Prince took it upon himself to tie up the loose ends of his brothers. He was young and he knows it. So instead of settling down in any territory or district, he travels to all his brothers’ and learns. He was an eager prince. He soaked up the way of a ruler, the precision of the sword, the theory of matter, the philosophy of all territories and even the formalities of the Court. If not for his age, the people agreed the Seventh Prince would have been the next in line for sure. 

And when the Crowned Prince went missing, people whispered of conflict. It had been a simple expedition to another land. Something he’s done since his childhood. Yet he did not come back. Ambushed, caught off guard, _betrayed_ , they whispered. While the line of succession should have gone to the Second Prince, there was dissent among the Princes. For the first time in their lives, they didn’t have the First Prince to reign them all in and demand harmony. 

So the Battle for the Crown began. 

\--- 

“—And that is why your selection is so important.” 

Xu Minghao sighs deeply and continues to pack his belongings. He has heard this story from his grandfather many, many times. Who the Princes are and how their kingdom fell into the chaos it is now. He mutters under his breath, “Because _I_ will be able to make a difference in all of this.” 

“Xu Minghao,” his grandfather scowls. Minghao’s not looking, but he can hear the dull shuffle of his grandfather limping across his room. The elder Xu dragged his wooden leg like a medal of honor. “Our Eastern territories has always produced the finest soldiers and you are no exception. Unlike your father and I, you were trained to be a _knight_.” 

Minghao focuses on the mess of clothes and concealable weapons piled on his bed. He goes through the automatic motions of checking his blades before securing them into their sheaths. Yes, he was a knight-in-training, but that did not automatically make him some definitive piece of this large war. His role in all of this was to swear his allegiance to a Prince and protect that Prince for the rest of his life. 

“Remember, you have three selections,” his grandfather continues. “Our family has always—“ 

“Favored the just, aligned with our own and protected those in need,” Minghao mumbles to himself in the same pace and tone his grandfather used. He could probably retell the stories of why those became the Xu family core values in his sleep. There were fanciful tales of demons and magic. When he was five, he might have taken them to heart. Now at the age of twenty, Xu Minghao didn’t believe in demons, only tradition. 

“So remember the Princes that you want to select are—” 

“The First Prince, the Eastern Prince and the Lost Prince,” Minghao regurgitates in a whisper from hours and hours of lecturing. He finishes packing all his knives and lay them to the side. It was time to pack clothes—just a couple shirts, a durable jacket and some easy to patch up pants. 

“And you’ll chose—” 

“The First Prince because he is fair and just, the Eastern Prince because he’s of our blood and the Lost Prince because in this Battle of the Crown, he’ll need the most help,” Minghao finally interrupts with what his grandfather was going to say verbatim. He stops rolling his pants to give his grandfather a tired smile. “Which probably means I’m going to end up with the Eastern Prince because our dear First Prince is missing and the Lost Prince might be an urban legend.” 

There was a pregnant pause and a deep sigh. 

“Prince Junhui would not be a bad master to serve,” his grandfather finally says. “He has our blood.” 

Minghao blinked as he watched his grandfather hobble out of his room. Well that was new. There was no continuing spiel about how the Lost Prince was definitely alive and out there. 

Deciding not to think too deeply on it, Minghao finished tying up his travel bag. It had everything he needed for a week long travel into the Capitol, his on hand weaponry and a couple of ceremonial accessories for the actual knighting. The palace had told him that all he needed to bring was himself and whatever familial pieces he wished to embellish his uniform with. They already commissioned him an official broadsword and a uniform. Since he was probably going to return to the Eastern territories after the knighting ceremony, Minghao packed lightly. He would have time to return home and gather personal effects before heading into the Eastern stronghold. 

Minghao shoves everything to the side of his bed and collapses on top of his messy sheets. He was a little terrified. 

Knights were _not_ the same as soldiers. It wasn’t as simple as physically keeping the prince out of harm. Sure, being a knight meant fancy clothes, decorated weapons and formal decorum. It was easy to think of a knight as a personal bodyguard—protect and serve, but that was not enough to bear a prince’s insignia. Just being competent at fighting or magic or politics was just a tiny little portion of a good knight. 

The knighting process wasn’t just a ceremony. It was a ritual. The knight swore allegiance to the Prince to protect and serve above the kingdom— _to my Prince and then my kingdom_. The Prince would accept this pledge and bind them through blood— _to my Knight in both mind and body_. It was a ritual that bound two people together for more or less until death. 

And Minghao was  _completely_ terrified. 

Four years ago, Minghao had just freshly joined the top ranks for knights-in-training. He had been lucky enough to travel to the main training facility right when the knight of the Crowned Prince, Kwon Soonyoung, dropped by. Surrounded by those from every territory, Minghao had remembered feeling small and out of place as the only Easterner there. 

 “I’m not going to sugar coat this because I need you to consider everything before deciding to pursue knighthood,” the Knight in High Command had said firmly. In contrast from the exuberant energy a little earlier, the knight had been serious and grim. “The bond to your Prince has obviously conditions in the physical realm, but there are also emotional ones people tend not to consider.” 

Minghao had been a little star struck. Kwon Soonyoung had come in full ceremonial gear—gleaming white boots, pristine Capitol military uniform with gold trimmings, bejeweled sword and sheath, and a ring glowing with the crest of the Royal Family. There was no solider out there who didn’t know of Ten O' Ten Hoshi. The stories off the battlefield had been that he always successfully completes all operations before the clock struck 10:10PM, no matter when they started that day. To say that Minghao had been in complete awe was not too far from the truth. 

The knight had paused and continued quietly, “We knights are known for our majestic physical and magically feats. Only those who are at the top of their game can become knight candidates, so congratulations to you all. But, in order to release our powers at full throttle both physically and magically, we give up our rational and emotional control to our Princes.” 

Minghao had remembered frowning and looking around at the other knights-in-training. Everyone had seemed quite unfazed, and it was the first time Minghao had felt the disadvantage of his Eastern upbringing. 

“It both confining and liberating,” the knight of the Crowned Prince had chuckled, his smile radiant and shy. “I’m going to be a little sappy and please don’t cringe too hard. But it really is like the Prince taking care of your heart and soul while you complete the tasks that _need_ to be done. Oh, I see those cringes. Don’t think you’re too tough to need a little emotional support. Being a knight isn’t easy, and this exchange is what takes care of _us_ as we care for our Princes. ” 

Four years ago, Minghao had been terrified. And now, Minghao was still terrified. 

He was about to put his heart and soul, so to speak, in the hands of someone he’s only seen from afar. While Prince Wen Junhui was a handsome and reliable looking figure on his warhorse, Minghao didn’t know whether he could say he _trusted_ the Prince. 

“There’s one downside or maybe upside, depending on how you look at it,” Soonyoung had said, laughing dryly. “Because of the bond, you’ll trust your Prince no matter what. Whether you _like_ him or not, well, that’s the only part really up to you. So make your selection wisely. As knights, that’s the only choice we _get_ to make.” 

Minghao prays that he’d like Prince Wen Junhui. After all, it’s not like he could become the knight to the missing Crowned Prince or the nonexistent Lost Prince. 

He allows himself to wallow in his bed sheets for a moment more before forcing himself up. Grabbing his travel bag, Minghao walks out of his bedroom. Minghao pauses in the living room. Back turned to the younger, his grandfather was sitting on the floor with his wooden leg tucked underneath him and pictures scattered all about him. 

“ _Ye ye_ ,” Minghao calls softly. “I’ll be back after the ceremony.” 

His grandfather hums in acknowledgement. 

“I’ll be leaving then,” Minghao says slowly. He bites his lower lip and gnaws on it a little. He was just about to turn around and leave when his grandfather starts talking.

“During the Western War, I was a senior watchman at the palace,” his grandfather said. Minghao freezes. He’s never heard of his grandfather talk of the wars. Anything he’s heard about his grandfather’s work in the war was from his father. “Even though I wasn’t young anymore, I saw _everything_. Everything and everyone that came in and out of the palace, I saw with my own eyes. Even the Lost Prince.” 

His grandfather looks up from his pictures, but Minghao couldn’t really tell what the elder Xu was looking at. Probably nothing at all, just a distant memory. 

“No more than a babe, his mother—we all called her the Commoner Queen, oh we were cruel to her back then—took him one night and ran,” his grandfather continues. “I was about to chase when the Crowned Prince, couldn’t have been older than eight or nine at the time, told me to let them go. So I let them go. Watched her desperately run through the gates with the young Prince in her arms. She was such a sad sight and I still remember the sound of the child crying.” 

Minghao doesn’t dare to even breathe too loudly. The older Xu was too rigid and traditional to make false claims. His grandfather told fanciful tales about demons and magic, but he never lied about his time serving the kingdom. And his grandfather respected his comrades and enemies too much for that. 

“The Lost Prince is out there, Minghao,” his grandfather sighs. The older man turns just enough to see his grandson in his peripheral vision. “No matter who you go to in the end, be it Prince Wen Junhui or not. Remember the Lost Prince and help him if you do have the fortune of seeing him. Heaven knows who would be willing to help a Prince without power at this day and age.” 

“Favor the just, align with our own and protect those in need,” Minghao swears. For the first time in his life, he feels like he means it. 

“Exactly,” the older Xu nods. He turns back to his pictures on the floor and waves Minghao away. 

“I’ll be back,” Minghao bows respectfully. His grandfather merely grunts in response. So he takes his leave.

Minghao lingers a moment to say goodbye to his parents—a warm hug from his mom and a hardy pat on the back from his dad. Then the knight-to-be walks out the door and heads towards the Capitol. 

His knighting ceremony was in a week, but fate planned for his knighting ritual to be a tad bit earlier.  

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you guess who the Princes are? LOL The first two are members of Nu'est hahahhaha. The first son is Aron and the second son is JR. The third son (Crowned Prince) is Seungcheol. HAHAH I tried to be as obvious as possible with the Princes but there might be one that's a little vague. Did any guess the Fifth Prince to be Jihoon?
> 
> Sooo, I decided to commit to Wonhui 'cause uh, that's where the story seems to be going in my head HAHAH, but there will be like...past Meanie and Junhao (HOW? WE WILL ALL SEE). I'm almost 120% that imma end up with a Soonyoung pairing and Verkwan LOL 
> 
> Sorry if I'm a little spastic? LOL I'm just so stressed out about my internship (it's only been the first week help) that I come home and release all my nervous energy onto WordDoc and publish stuff. After the next chap, imma spend more time editing stuff, but for now I just am "Add Chapter" button happy!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before the Crowned Prince left for the voyage he never came back from, Choi Seungcheol left a legacy.

_**Seven Princes,** four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Princes: The Crowned Prince

Choi Seungcheol prided himself in his ability to bring together all of his brothers. It was a feat his father before him could never even dream of.

In the generations past, the children of the crown never met their uncles and aunts. The reason had been simple. The King would kill or banish his siblings to ensure that no one would challenge his rule. And history had cruel, cruel stories. 

His ancestors may see it as a weakness, but Seungcheol had a weak heart—not physically, but emotionally. As a young child, Seungcheol had the fortunate experience of being doted on by his older brothers. They taught him everything he knew from swordsmanship to horseback riding to sneaking out of the palace undetected. But the weight of the crown was something neither of his older brothers wished to bear. 

So at a young age, Choi Seungcheol became the Crowned Prince. 

Thankfully, while his older brothers abandoned their lives in Court, Seungcheol still had his two younger brothers’ close in age. Yoon Jeonghan, the son of a wealthy Capitol noblewoman, was much weaker physically. He wasn’t much of a fighter or a scholar—it had nothing to do with the lack of brains, but rather no direction or focus. But he had a way with people. His handsome features and gentle speech could pry open even the most stubborn of men. His other brother was similar. Hong Jisoo, the son of a powerful merchant, despised violence and deceit so he refused to participate in war games. Of course, he still learned the basics of war because no son of the king could leave the palace without knowing basic self-defense. Jisoo was also fantastic with people, but while he thrived in the Court, it was the Church where he found his home. As the Church was right across from the palace, Seungcheol still saw his younger brother often. 

When Lee Jihoon was born, Seungcheol had been at most four or five years of age. He had been the first of his brothers to hold the newborn. Sitting in the lap of his oldest brother, Seungcheol cradled Jihoon in his arms. And he would never forget those dark eyes peering up at him. 

“You have to protect your baby brothers,” his oldest brother had said. “Protect them, teach them and lead them.” 

Seungcheol never forgot that moment. He knew that he could never harm any of his baby brothers. No matter what history said. No matter what the crown demanded. 

So when he met Junhui, the half-blood mix of a strong Eastern warrior, Seungcheol embraced the younger boy in fierce hug. He used his broken Eastern tongue to welcome the younger Prince into the Capitol. He promised that no matter what, he would take care of the Eastern territories. Seungcheol’s home was Junhui’s and in turn, Junhui’s was Seungcheol’s. It was the same when he first held Hansol’s hand. He promised in heavily accented Western tongue that he would love and protect the younger prince no matter what. The younger prince had answered in perfect Capitol speak that he believed his older brother. Seungcheol held tight on the hand of his young brother and swore he’d never let go. 

Of all his brothers, Seungcheol probably spent the most time mentoring their youngest. Lee Chan was the delightful son of a middle class noblewoman. The queen herself had been a joy—witty and bright. Her son, the Seventh Prince, was even more so. Chan learned quickly and absorbed all sorts of knowledge like a sponge. Seungcheol sent him to all the territories of their kingdom to learn the trades of all his brothers. And from what his brothers reported back, Chan excelled in everything. If only the boy were just a few years older and with fewer brothers in between, Seungcheol would have had no qualms seeing Lee Chan to the throne. Not that he told anyone this thought. 

There was something else he’s never told anyone—other than his own knight Kwon Soonyoung, but he knew of his younger brother, the Lost Prince. The young infant would have no recollection, but Seungcheol made a promise to Kim Mingyu that he would watch out for him. The queen confessed that she wished to flee the palace with Mingyu and Seungcheol relented. It would be good for one of the princes to stand for the common people, especially the son of the only Commoner Queen. 

“Isn’t it time to bring him back?” Soonyoung, his knight, asks. 

Seungcheol clicks together the last clasp of his cloak and hums in response. This would be the last expedition towards the Northern Seas in the next couple years. It was a tradition he endured in for the past decade. He wanted to forge good relations with the people beyond the Northern Seas, and he’s worked hard for the trade routes they’ve established. After this year, Seungcheol needed to focus his energies for the coronation. It was the right time to ascend the throne. 

“If we wait any longer—” 

“There’s nothing wrong with him staying a commoner,” Seungcheol shrugs. “But I do agree that we should at least let Mingyu know of his royal heritage. He can decide whether he wishes to join the rest of us in the Court or stay amongst the people.” 

“He should come back to the Court,” his knight insists. And in any other circumstance, Seungcheol would agree. However, he knows better than anyone how restricting Court life was. Could someone who lived his life creating his own way truly agree to shackle himself into outdated traditions and nonsensical rules? 

“Let’s decide on this matter when I return,” Seungcheol says firmly. He double checks his concealed weapons and gives his belt a final tug. “He’ll be eighteen, and a man in the eyes of the Court.” 

“Are you sure you don’t wish me to accompany you on this voyage?” Soonyoung asks. His brows are furrowed in concern. It was a strange expression for the usually carefree and exuberant knight to have. “I don’t have good feeling about this time.” 

“With the Western territories so unstable?” Seungcheol laughs. “Soonyoungie, I much prefer you here to assist Sixlet if the need comes up. I trust you more than anyone.” 

“Is that an order?” 

Seungcheol turns to his longest friend and pulls him into a one arm hug. He whispers, “No, it’s a favor. Keep my younger brothers safe okay?” 

“Are you saying the knights I’ve trained are not up to task?” Soonyoung teases with mock annoyance. “I’ll let Seungkwan know that the Crowned Prince finds him inadequate—” 

“You _know_ that’s not what I meant!” Seungcheol whines in a very un-princely manner. Soonyoung shushes the older prince with a bear hug. 

“I know and I will,” Soonyoung smiles into the prince’s shoulder. “I’ll keep them safe.” 

With that promise, Seungcheol found himself light of heart as he boarded his ship. It would be a tedious month long voyage, but he trusts his knight. Watching the Capitol turn into a little dot on the horizon, Seungcheol whispers a short spell and kisses the ring on his pinky. 

 _May the winds be fair and my brothers be safe._  

Too distracted by his kingdom disappearing into the horizon, Seungcheol didn’t see the foreboding red his ring glowed before fading back into its usual blue. 

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and then what happened to him? Find out next week on Yu-Gi---oh, wrong fandom. Hahahaha, I think I'm funny. I've never been delirious because of a cold, but here I am. 
> 
> Once I get through the Princes and some other important characters, Imma start writing a little more of the plot....there is a plot to all of this madness, just not very apparent right now. Or is it? LOL 
> 
> Thanks for reading everyone! :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fifth Prince decides to take it into his own hands.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Princes: The Fifth Prince

Lee Jihoon was the Fifth Prince born to the Northern Territories. True to his Northern heritage, his eyes were dark and endless just like the winter nights. Unlike his brothers, he was slighter in statue and weaker in constitution. But that did not mean he was a weak Prince, politically or ability-wise.

No, Lee Jihoon was a _little_ special. Unlike his brothers who’ve inherited various powers—super strength, healing, night vision, and all sorts of physical enhancements, Jihoon was the only one who crossed into the mystical and unexplained. 

He could see into the future. It came in visions, unexpected and usually undesired. They were always visions of horrible futures—wars and famine and disease and destruction. These potential futures usually left Jihoon heaving and griped with fear. 

Having grown up in the Capitol away from his mother, Jihoon used to run to his older brother’s room and shake the older boy awake. Sometimes it was impossible to wake Jisoo and he knew better than to bother Jeonghan at night. But Seungcheol never turned him away. So it was to the Crowned Prince that he whispered all of these visions of the future, long before he even realized what they were. 

“I had a dream,” five year old Jihoon whispered in the dark. “You left on a boat and didn’t come back.” 

Ten year old Seungcheol had held his brother close and mumbled, “Where would I go if I didn’t come back?” 

“You died,” Jihoon cried. “And then everyone fought and died.” 

“Who’s everyone?” Seungcheol asked. He started patting the younger boy’s back in an attempt to calm the other down. 

“All the hyungs, Vernon, Dino,” Jihoon rambled. “Everyone, even Mingyu, even—even me.” 

“Who? You’re not going to die, Jihoonie,” Seungcheol yawned. “I wouldn’t let you die.” 

“But _you died_.” 

Seungcheol rubbed his eyes and sat up. He looked down at his baby brother and said firmly, “I wouldn’t let you die. Even if I died, I would still protect you guys.” 

“How?” 

Seungcheol smiled and held up his pinky finger. Even in the dark, the family crest on the silver band glowed brilliantly blue. 

“I can ask our ancestors and they’ll help me,” Seungcheol replied with a large toothy grin. He whispered, “ _Keep my brothers safe_.” 

As Seungcheol kissed the ring, Jihoon watched the ring glowed a cheery gold before fading back into blue. And like that, the young Fifth Prince found his worries dissipating.  The royal crest stayed golden for a moment longer like a lingering promise. 

It was the responsibility of the Crown Prince to bear the royal insignia, and Jihoon could think of no one better to do so. At the age of five, Jihoon believed there was no one better than Seungcheol to rule from their father’s throne. 

To be honest, at the age of twenty two, Lee Jihoon still believes so. 

The moment he heard that his dear older brother was lost at sea—ambushed, caught off guard, _betrayed_. Jihoon did the first thing he could think of: deny the Second Prince the crown. 

While he loved Jeonghan as a brother, Jihoon could not see the Second Prince ruling their kingdom. Nor could he see _any_ of his brothers in power—too young, too militaristic or too soft. So Jihoon does what a prince in his position could do: deny the Second Prince the crown, close off the Northern territories and declare war on the Eastern territories. 

He would not let his visions come true. Even if it meant that _some_ of his brothers may die. Jihoon was no longer five. He doesn’t believe that his older brother could protect them from beyond the mortal realm. So he needed to. 

Jihoon prays that Seungcheol would forgive him.

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this segment is so short! I'm just swamped with stuff right now!!! But I really wanted to kind of allude to the conflicts that are going on. So yes, Northern vs Eastern...I'll hopefully go into Junhui's backstory a little next time...
> 
> SORRY, this probably could be longer but i'm literally a large human shaped bag of liquid caffiene right now LOL I might come back and like lengthen it or go into more of Jihoon's story later one...yeah, tbh that's probably what's gonna happen....


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prince Wen Junhui can't catch a break, not when he was younger and definitely not now.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Prince: The Eastern Prince

In the past, Wen Junhui thought he was an unwelcomed Prince. 

During the early years of the establishment of the Eastern territories, it wasn’t uncommon for those in the Capitol to turn their nose to the savages of the East. On the other hand, his mixed blood was a disgrace to the traditionally inbred culture of the East. It was in those year that Junhui grew up—feared by the Capitol staff who cared for him and shunned by the Eastern people he was meant to rule. 

Diluted with Eastern blood, the Fourth Prince thought he wasn’t truly a prince of the Kingdom. He had thought that was the reason he had a different last name than his brothers. 

So when the King summoned him to the Captiol, Junhui cried into his mother’s breast plate. It was the only time his warrior of a mother allowed it. While she was stern and strict, the Eastern Queen knew of the hardships her little boy faced. So just that once, she let him cry freely and let herself be a mother, coddling him against her chest. 

He was terrified of his brothers. The Crowned Prince was a young but intimidating figure—his prowess at Formal magic and in war games garnered the respect even in the eyes of Eastern generals. The Second Prince was widely known for his aloof beauty and the Third Prince for his anti-militaristic stance. His younger brother of the North was acclaimed for his intelligence and progressive mastery of alchemy. From rumors and traveling bards, his brothers sounded terrifying. 

Junhui had walked into the Great Halls almost in tears. He had just bowed down to his father, the King, when Junhui was knocked over in a large hug. 

“欢 ying.” _Welcome._  

Junhui almost jumped at the familiar words next to his ear. The accent was awkward and obviously of the Capitol, but they were so warm and _home_. 

“Wo de弟弟.” _My younger brother_. 

The other pulled away and Junhui meets the Crowned Prince, Choi Seungcheol, for the first time. The older boy, fourteen and still growing, smiled at his younger brother. 

“Wo 家是 ni jia. 你家也shi wo jia. Wo hui保护我们家.” _My home is your home. Your home is also mine. I will protect our home_. 

It was then Junhui decided that he must rule the Eastern Territories. For himself, for his brother, and for their home. 

\--- 

It was a strange little tradition. The children of the King do not take on his last name. No, they take the Queen’s maiden name. 

The idea was that only he who took the crown would take the King’s last name. All the other princes would become the heads of their mother’s households. This ensured that each Prince had a home to return to if they wished to leave the Court. 

This did not mean that women never ascended the throne. In history, many strong princesses took the crown and ruled their kingdoms. However, they were also known as Kings. 

It seemed fitting or just more convenient as the Royal family name was King. 

\--- 

“Jihoon didn’t come, did he?” the Second Prince, Yoon Jeonghan sighs. Settling back down in his rotating chair, he stares out the Northern Window a little forlornly. The clouds hung low on the Northern Territories, and these days they also hung over Jeonghan’s head quite darkly. “It’s his own brother’s knighting ceremony and he didn’t come.” 

“Nope,” Junhui shrugs. He plays with a loose string on the hem of his jacket. Junhui almost pouts when the string is suddenly cut neatly and the tiny loose end mends back into the fabric. Imperfections on their clothes had always been a pet peeve of their dear Second Prince. “Seokmin’s here though.” 

“Hah, the brat knows to send his knight at least,” Jeonghan snorts elegantly. Junhui has always admired his older brother’s ability to make even the most unpleasing movements and speech into something beautiful. “At least he’s covered his bases with the Court.” 

Junhui nods. If nothing else, Jihoon always behaved appropriately for the Court. Even if it was by the skin of his teeth. 

“You two used to be so close,” Jeonghan mutters. “What happened?” 

Junhui knows that the Second Prince was talking more to himself so the Eastern Prince doesn’t respond. Instead, he looks around the command room, dubbed the Top of the World. It had been at least two years since he was last invited here. It used to be Seungcheol’s office where he oversaw the four Territories from the large windows. The room itself was at the highest point of the Capitol palace and shaped like a dome so the four windows faced the direction they were named after—the Northern Window faced the Northern Territories, the Eastern Window faced the Eastern Territories, etc. 

In the middle was a spinning chair—hours of fun for the young Crowned Prince and the even younger Eastern Prince back in the day. Surrounding the chair was a ring-shaped table with the map of the corresponding territories flattened out onto one dimension. With a couple of commands, the image could be made into the three-dimensional map complete with clouds, rain and wind. 

The previous kings built it to declare that _they_ were the center of the world. Even before their kingdom conquered those territories, their ancestors had long set their sights on the entire map. Their father also worked tirelessly to make that dream a reality. Before the old man died, Junhui had just stabilized their rule in the east. 

They were truly a formidable force in the world. If Seungcheol hadn’t disappeared, the Kingdom could have been invincible. After all, there were no other leaders in the world that had the same mastery of the Command Voice as Seungcheol did. 

However, once Seungcheol vanished with his ship, the Kingdom fell to chaos. The East was riled up, the West was a mess, the North was closed off, and the South was still mourning. The conflicts of the North and the East were not helping Junhui settle the disturbances in his own territories. All the Great Eastern tribes, even those who had peacefully accepted the Kingdom’s rule, were murmuring their dissent. 

In the East, mastery of war games was a large part of their culture, and the Eastern people admired the Crowned Prince Choi Seungcheol for his military prowess. So many of the tribes accepted the Crowned Prince’s rule, some more grudgingly than others. Now, with the Second Prince, famous for his disinterest in military affairs, and the Third Prince, infamous for his anti-militaristic stance, the Eastern tribes couldn’t throw their support behind the Kingdom’s rulers. 

Having grown up in the East and being of Eastern descent, Junhui finds himself hard pressed to disagree. There was no doubt that he loved his older brothers, but—but he’s not sure he would trust them to step up to the plate of High Commander in Chief if true conflict were to come up. Junhui would never say this out loud, but he doesn’t think Jeonghan deserves the throne.   

“Stupid idiot should have taken Soonyoung,” Jeonghan suddenly says. “Only Soonyoung keeps him in line and safe.” 

Junhui looks up from his hands and Jeonghan has this sad smile. Hastily, the Eastern Prince looks down in guilt. Sometimes he forgets that his older brother can read thoughts—“I can’t tell you what you were thinking verbatim, but I get the gist,” a much younger Jeonghan had explained. 

“Don’t worry,” Jeonghan laughs. It’s a little forced and awkward, and it only makes Junhui feel worse. “I can tell you right now that most of the Kingdom thinks the same.” 

“I—I do love you,” Junhui says as sincerely as he can. 

“I know Jun,” Jeonghan chuckles. It’s quieter but much more genuine than before. “I love you too.” 

“I wish things were different,” Junhui continues. He’s trying to explain what he knows Jeonghan can already hear, and the Second Prince just listens. “It’s not that I don’t think you—I think you have your strengths—I respect and admired you and, I—I just wished Seungcheol-hyung were here.” 

“Me too,” Jeonghan sighs. He looks so tired and it makes Junhui’s heart hurt to see his brother like this. “I wish that stupid idiot were here too.” 

And when Junhui sees Jeonghan raise his ring to his lips, it really does breaks his heart. The ring on the Second Prince’s pinky glows dimly like a feeble consolation.

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO WE'RE ALMOST DONE WITH ALL THE PRINCES. More into the Capitol, the attitudes of the Territories, I'm really trying to build a full AU here LOL a lot of it will be cliche and stuffs...I wish I were Tolkien as well...LOL
> 
> Anyways this will probably be the last update for this week...I'm getting swamped with projects and I need this weekend to get caught up *crying* 
> 
> THANK YOU GUYS for all the support n stuff! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 I do love reading all y'alls comments and it lets me go to work with a spring in my step~


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The knights come together and Minghao meets the Third and Seventh Princes' as knights.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Prince: The Knights and the Prince Knights

“I heard you had a long day!” Lee Seokmin, the knight of the Fifth Prince, laughs. He pats Minghao on the back with friendly gusto. The sunshine knight of the Northern territories was pretty infamous in his own right. Most people crippled in the twenty-two hours of darkness, freezing temperatures and harsh winds, but Lee Seokmin was rumored to smile through _everything_. 

Even though they weren’t very close, Minghao finds himself smiling back. The other man’s happiness was infectious. It was something Minghao sorely needed after fighting his prince for the past three days. 

Usually, the knights retired into their Prince’s quarters by this time, but tonight, the knights were called into a common quarter for a formal meeting. To be honest, it was a meeting followed by a glorified complaint fest. The knights didn’t get together often anymore—after all, the Crowned Prince was the one who set annual family meeting and after he _disappeared_ , no one upheld that tradition. 

“Did he finally wear the ring?” Seungkwan asks, swooping down from the staircase in a flourish. The Sixth Knight was still decked out in his ceremonial gear. His ceremonial broadsword clanked against all the embellishments hanging off his belt. 

“Yep,” Minghao sighs in relief. He holds up his own pinky—the ring gleamed in the candle light. The only way he could have worn his was if his Prince was hearing his own. The Lost Prince’s symbol was an infinity sign, and it suited both knight and prince quite well. “Actually, Prince Vernon seemed to have convinced him to wear it.” 

“Hansol? Convinced the Lost Prince?” Seungkwan exclaims. He looks betrayed. “So that’s where he went! Ditched the reception and left me to explain to an unhappy Second Prince why their dear Sixlet wasn’t present!” 

“How was the reception?” Minghao asks. He had been too busy wrestling Mingyu into his ring to have seen any of it. He’s heard that Capitol parties at the palace were beautiful and that the Court’s entertainers knew dance, song and magic. 

“Oh I know what you’re thinking,” Seungkwan laughs. Minghao doesn’t know too much about the younger knight, but his reputation exceeds him. So far, Seungkwan had not failed to deliver. Nothing got past his ears. “There’s nothing the performers can do that you cannot. In fact, your magic exceeds any of theirs.” 

“I saw your battle stats,” Seokmin interjects. He’s struggling to unbutton his ceremonial jacket, but the struggle wasn’t apparent on his face. He was still smiling brightly. “ _You_ are one knight I don’t want to have a public battle with.” 

“So you’d fight His Highness?” Seungkwan questions in a sing-song voice. He perched himself on the table so his sword slung off the edge easily. Unlike the other two, Seungkwan made no move to take off any of his decorative gear. “What a risk taker!” 

“I’d battle the Third Prince, not the Seventh,” Seokmin answers truthfully. He finally shed the jacket, the belt and all the weaponry. Minghao had to admit that he was quite impressed at the rather large pile of concealed weapons. As light as some of those knives could be, they were still a good amount of extra weight the knight of the Fifth Prince had to lug around in stifling ceremonial gear. 

Just as Minghao was about to ease out of his jacket, all three knights jumped into their traditional salute—a fist over their hearts with only their pinky straight out, displaying their rings. 

“At ease,” the Third Prince, Hong Jisoo, allowed. They dropped their salute only after a kiss to their ring and a short pledge— _to my Prince and then my country_. Seokmin seemed to want to say something, but he was shushed quickly. “I am not a knight by training so I have no reason to take offense to the truth. I would also not want to fight my younger brother. He is quite the terror to battle.” 

“Have we heard anything from our Knight in High Command?” Seungkwan asks formally. He was still standing straight with his hands clasped behind him. 

“Soonyoung? No, we haven’t,” Jisoo admits. He sits down at the long table and sighs. “No one’s heard anything.” 

“It’s like he disappeared with,” Seokmin begins then hesitates. The silence that follows was tense. 

“It’s like he disappeared with my brother.” 

The knights jump to salute again only to be waved off. The Seventh Prince, Lee Chan, jumps from the top of the stairwell and lands at the foot of the table. Minghao blinks rapidly. He’s never seen such effortless wordless casting. The staircase was a good ten feet from the table both in height and distance. No matter how masterful the young prince was of his body, that jump should have yielded some sound but the Seventh Prince’s feet met the stone floor in silence. Wordless magic at its finest. 

“The Knight in High Command Kwon Soonyoung disappeared quite suddenly after the Crowned Prince did,” Chan said gently. For a boy his age, the Seventh Prince looked much older. There was something much more mature about him than even Prince Vernon. Minghao had heard rumors about the Seventh Prince. He could have been the Crowned Prince if it weren’t for his age, and the Eastern knight was starting to see why. “It’s quite normal to associate their absence. After all, they do say that the greatest loyalty of a knight is to follow his or her Prince.” 

“Or their greatest fault,” Jisoo quips. 

“It’s our greatest pride,” Minghao interjects. The two princes look up at him, and the words start sticking to the back of his throat. Still, he continues on. “To protect and serve the prince we swore our allegiance to. Even if that service calls beyond the grave.” 

There was a short silence. Then the Seventh Prince begins clapping loudly. 

“The spirit of a knight,” Chan laughs, finally looking like a boy of his age. Jisoo merely smiles quietly. Minghao couldn’t help but feel like he passed some test. “It’s good to have you onboard! It’s been a while since new knights joined the ranks.” 

“Soon Jeon Wonwoo will be joining us too!” Seokmin cheers. “It’ll be nice to get some fresh faces in this place!” 

“New knights are always a good reason to celebrate,” the Third Prince agrees. “But before we get too far along in the festivities, I do want to hash out some security details of the knighting ceremony tomorrow.”

"Of how to protect the attacker," Seungkwan mutters quietly, but it's loud enough that everyone in the room could hear. Seokmin stifles his laughter with a cough, and Minghao smiles in agreement. "God bless the poor idiot who tries to attack the Fourth Prince."

Minghao was quite impressed with how everyone got into business mode so quickly after that. Even the ever talkative Seungkwan quieted down. They sat on the long table in order of the Prince’s they served—Jisoo and Chan on one side of the table while Seokmin, Minghao and Seungkwan sat on the other side. Seokmin had originally been sitting next to Chan when he suddenly stopped and moved over to Minghao. No one really said anything, but they were reorganizing for their new knight. The head of the table was left empty, a seat usually occupied by the knight of the Crowned Prince. 

“Formalities when we are princes, casual when we are knights,” the Third Prince insisted after a brief round of introduction. “We all have different hats. So when I have my prince hat on, it’s either Prince Jisoo, Prince Joshua or Third Prince. If I have my knight hat on as I do right now, you can address me as Second Knight if we are in public and just Jisoo-hyung if we’re in private. Same with Chan.” 

“Everyone can just call me Dino to make things easier,” Chan shrugs. “It’s my ‘official Court name’ so regardless if you add Prince or not, it’s a formal name of mine.” 

Minghao wasn’t too sure how to act around Princes who were also knights, so he just followed his fellow knights’ lead with a tad more reservation. Which ended up being much more informal than he expected. 

It was strange to be making the rules instead of following them. As a knight-in-training, they were taught theories and practiced with peers. While they were taught how to lead, they were never actually allowed to. It had always been a large game of follow the leader. And to be honest, Minghao expected being a knight to be the same. 

He thought he would just be following the lead of someone else. Instead, even as the knight of the Lost Prince, Minghao found his opinion respected and listened to. He found it empowering to give and receive feedback on various issues.

“—and that should be everything.” 

“May tomorrow’s knighting ceremony go smoothly,” Jisoo prays. He brings his ring to his lips and presses them against his own symbol—a circle cut into fourths, also the symbol of the Church. The band glows gold before fading back into its steel shine. 

“And may tomorrow be a day of joy and festivities,” Chan adds. The Seventh Prince also kisses his ring. The band glows with a brilliant golden halo before dimming. 

“And good weather too,” Seokmin nods unnaturally solemn. Seungkwan smothers a laugh.

Minghao put his ring to his lips and pulls away just in time to see the infinity sign fade from gold. 

_To good weather, to my Prince and then my country_. 

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU'VE KINDA MET ALL THE PRINCES NOW. Soooo, basically, here's the age distribution of when Mingyu/Minghao's story starts: 
> 
> Seungcheol (27) - disappeared 2 years ago (25) --> Soonyoung (25) – disappeared around the same time (23)  
> Jeonghan (27) --> Jisoo (27), Dino (17)  
> Junhui (23) --> Wonwoo (23)  
> Jihoon (22) --> Seokmin (20)  
> Mingyu (20) --> Minghao (20)  
> Vernon (19) --> Seungkwan (19)
> 
> (and if anyone was interested: Aron (40) – western territories / JR (37) – southern territories MUCH older sons soooo even the previous King had a backstory HAHAHA there is history to all this madness)
> 
> Yeah, I had a long a** ride (HAHAHA oh NCT) and I spent all of it kind of re-organizing the story in my head. I think I'm getting a clearer direction for it and so I might clarify some things first (and I just have this young!Seungcheol short that I just have to write) and then we'll dive right into the Lost Prince's story! 
> 
> Thanks for sticking around for the Gyuhao and Wonhui even though LOL it's been so nonexistent....I JUST NEED TO GET TO JUNHUI'S KNIGHTING CEREMONY AND WE'RE GREEN LIGHT. But before that, THANK YOU ALL for reading~~~ <3 <3 <3 <3


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some say this was the start. The Second Son would argue that it started long, long ago.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Princes: The Second Son and the Crowned Prince

Choi Seungcheol was a prince born to the sea side cities of the Southern territories. Every summer, he returned to those docks and their colorful floating houses. 

Running down the sandy beach, six year old Choi Seungcheol shrieked as the waves chased him. In an epic leap, he jumped onto the wooden planks of the boardwalk and sprinted down the pier. The water on each side disappeared underneath the floating houses—each a bright tropical color with seashell ornaments and driftwood shelves hanging off their walls. With each bounce, Seungcheol watched the houses shift in the waves and the waters peeking out from the cracks. 

Twisting and turning through the wooden plank walk ways, Seungcheol ran past a variety of houses and boats, tied to the boardwalk with sturdy enchanted knots. While he knew which one his mother lived in, Seungcheol skipped past the bright yellow house without a sideways glance at the large living room window. His mother had looked up from her book only to see the last bit of her son’s blue shirt disappearing out of the corner of the window. She smiled and went back to her book. Seungcheol went to _that_ place every day without fail. 

Continuing down his merry way, Seungcheol only stops once to pet the grumpy old sailor’s dog. His dog was equally grumpy, but today, the heat made him complacent. So the young prince pets its shaggy fur a couple times before running off. The old sailor was yelling curses out his upstairs balcony, but he had long given up on chasing Seungcheol away. Especially when the boy turns around and waves goodbye with the largest, toothiest smile. 

The houses slowly start to thin out as the pier continues further into the ocean. The waves are a little rougher out here a couple miles out, but for a child, this was the perfect playground. So he swayed with the planks and hopped over the posts that anchored larger fishing boats. Seungcheol waved at the passing sailors who waved back fondly. Some of them tossed out invitations— _trading with the merpeople today, wanna come along_ or _cave diving for giant squid you up for it kid_ —but today the six year old came with a purpose. So he waves goodbye with a promise of next time. 

The waves get more turbulent and the boardwalk much less stable. Seungcheol doesn’t relent. He continues even as the swaying sometimes forces him to crawl on all fours. But eventually he gets to the last wooden plank. Lying flat on his stomach, Seungcheol stares out into the sea. 

Nowadays, the Southern territories jokingly call it the Edge of the World. Old stories before they explored the world told of unfathomable dangers and terrible monsters beyond that point. In reality, they just couldn’t built too much further into the sea without the traveling current ripping away the walkway every couple of weeks. The sea currents were difficult to swim in and inevitably one or two die each year from being swept away. It was the most Northern point of their cities. Anything beyond had to be traveled by sea or through the Eastern Territories by land. 

Seungcheol could see the Capitol—a tiny white dot to his right. But while he missed all his brothers, he wasn’t looking for the tell-tale white marble reflections of the palace. No, he was staring down the horizon to the left. An ominous gate loomed in the distance barely in sight. The gates to the Northern territories and beyond. 

Maybe it was the mystery or maybe it was the conflict, but Seungcheol had always been fascinated by the Northern territories and the countries beyond the Northern Seas. He’s heard stories of how the Northern Territories had winter nights that lasted days at a time and how the snow compacted throughout the colder seasons to become towers of ice. Seungcheol knows of horrific tales of the barbarians in the Northern Territories, but he wonders. He wonders whether they truly were as terrifying as people thought them to be. His baby brother Lee Jihoon was a cute little thing, and it was almost impossible for him to think of those stories applying to him. 

Seungcheol doesn’t know how long he laid on the wooden planks, staring out into the sea and squinting to see those dark gates. At some point, he must have dozed off because the next time he opened his eyes, he was underneath the shade of a large beach umbrella. 

“You were either going to get sunburnt or roll off the edge into the water.” 

Seungcheol blinks. He turns only to see his second oldest brother sitting at the edge with his feet dipped into the water. The beach umbrella was wedge in between the planks and tied to a post so it was angled upwards. 

“Hyung,” Seungcheol mumbles, voice thick and dry. 

“Here kid,” the second son, Prince Kim Jonghyun, laughed, offering the boy his water flask. Seungcheol took it gladly and quickly gulped down half of its content. “If you were going to be out here for so long, you should have grabbed some water and snacks.” 

“Didn’t mean to,” Seungcheol admits sheepishly. 

“Aron-hyung was the one who found you, but he’s off exploring who knows where,” Jonghyun says. They both chuckle. The first son, Prince Kwak Aron, was a free-spirit. He loved seeing new things and stopped at nothing to travel the world. His knight, Hwang Minhyung, always has something to do—or more specifically, a prince to chase. “You really like stories of the North, don’t you?” 

“Yeah, ‘cause they’re different,” Seungcheol says. He joins his brother at the edge of the boardwalk. His feet barely submerge in the sea water. 

“Hm, do you think it’s bad that they’re different?” Jonghyun asks.

“No, different is good,” Seungcheol answers. He starts kicking the water and smiling as some of the splashes wet the edge of his brother’s pants. “Jihoon is from the North. He’s different but I like it.” 

Jonghyun smiles. The second son was also born to the Southern Sea Cities, but as an older prince, he’s been to the North and seen things he hopes his younger brothers never have to. The discrimination and prejudice against the Northern people was terrible, and it was no wonder the countries beyond the Northern Sea refused to communicate with them. Their kingdom took the Northern Territories from the native people through war and bloodshed. Instead of building them up like they did the Southern or even Western territories, the Capitol sought to suppress them and bring them down. 

Jonghyun held a great distaste for the fear and hate the Court bred in their stale halls, but he also knew he had no knack for politics to change it. Both Jonghyun and Aaron saw no hope for their existing kingdom. Destroy and rebuild was their motto, and appropriately, Jonghyun’s ring bore a hammer and anvil. Aaron’s ring was still of the Royal Crest—as he was the first born, but through private discussions, Jonghyun knew his older brother would not be Crowned Prince for too much longer. 

“Would you like to go to the countries beyond the Northern Sea with me?” Jonghyun asks. Seungcheol turns to his older brother with stars in his eyes. 

“C-can I?” the six year old asks. 

“Of course,” Jonghyun agrees readily. “I head over there in a month and I’ll let dad know you’re coming with me.” 

“Okay!” Seungcheol cheers. 

Jonghyun had long given up on changing their kingdom from within. He could not see himself nor his older brother leading the Court and actually persisting to change the terrible culture backed by hundreds of years of tradition. But sometimes, Jonghyun watches his younger brothers and thinks maybe, maybe this kingdom still had hope. 

“Can we go _now_?” 

Jonghyun laughs heartily. Okay, maybe in a couple of years. Before then, maybe he should stick around for just a little bit longer.

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little more about the territories...a little more about the Court...a little about the First and Second son who left~ I don't know why I'm so in love with young prince Seungcheol...probably because he's so innocent before he became Crowned Prince and he's so happy to have his older brothers (and their knights) spoil him LOL I'm probably gonna go into the previous King's story a little later (their father) 'cause LOL I personally think it's really interesting... Hm, I'm debating whether to go into the knight ceremony in the next couple of chaps or build this verse a little more...
> 
> BUT HEY I think you guys are used to my today-yesterday-two weeks from now-three years ago jumping LOL So I think Imma start heading into the Junhui's knighting ceremony and backtrack into Mingyu and Minghao's childhoods...I'M EXCITED 'cause i have these IDEAS for the knight ceremony and I just!!! A 4 hour car ride really does....let my mind just wander LOL 
> 
> ONCE AGAIN, THANK YOU LOVELY PEOPLE FOR READING AND LEAVING COMMENTS!! I am SO happy to hear from everyone and you guys really do inspire me! <3 It makes me think of questions I should address and how I should address them as I write!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fourth Prince meets his knight-to-be for the first time.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Princes: The Fourth Prince and His Knight-to-be

Straightening out his belt for the fifth time in two minutes, Wonwoo shifts his weight from foot to foot nervously. 

He’s usually not a very easily unsettled person. No, Wonwoo was known amongst the knight candidates as the steadiest in mood and hardest to crack under pressure. He had always been a Court favorite. Ever since he’s arrived in the Capitol, Wonwoo had been considered three times for knighthood—for Prince Jeonghan, Prince Jihoon and Prince Vernon, but since he wasn’t chosen, it wasn’t really something to brag about. 

“It’s never because the knight candidates are not qualified,” the Crowned Prince had consoled him. “Also, its hell to wake Jihoon up so—dodged a hit there?” 

Prince Jihoon’s knighting had been the first time Wonwoo had felt the sting of disappointment. He had just come up to the Capitol, young and bright with no idea of the politics that surrounded the choosing of knights. He had worked so hard and everything had seemed so unfair. Wonwoo hadn’t been able to stop the tears of frustration from wetting his cheeks, and that’s when the Crowned Prince had found him or rather had almost teleported on top of him. 

“Jihoonie…his situation is a little more complicated so it depends so much more on the Territories than on his own choice. The fact that you were in consideration even though you literally just arrived to the Capitol and you’re so young shows a great deal about your potential and drive,” Choi Seungcheol had rambled. He had seemed quite anxious about Wonwoo’s tears, and the young knight candidate had cracked a feeble smile at the idea of the _Crowned Prince_ being worried about _him_. “I feel like you’d be a great knight! After all, your scores are off the charts! Yeah, I kind of looked at them a little and I was actually thinking that maybe we should train you with our scholars for a little because it would be a waste to not develop that intelligence of yours—” 

And that’s how Wonwoo became the first scholar knight-in-training.                       

Wonwoo was not the smartest person in the castle—oh _no_ , there’s still much to learn, but he was definitely among the best in application. He absorbs knowledge from books like no other, and even the elderly scholars who lived their lives reading and learning acknowledged his mastery at many topics. But Wonwoo has never believed in stopping at just _knowing_. No, he has to find some _use_ for it. 

“Well, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you at last.” 

Wonwoo spins around and finds himself _literally_ face to face with the Eastern Prince, Wen Junhui. Startled, the knight-to-be stares wide eyed and a little cross eyed at the prince before him. He doesn’t have the space to bow so Wonwoo stands there stiffly and uncertainly.

“Jeon Wonwoo, wasn’t it?” Junhui smiles. 

“Y-yes Your Highness,” Wonwoo coughs, recollecting himself. He steps back to give the customary bow, but Junhui merely follows with a step forward. “Uh, Your Highness?” 

“Just call me Junhui or Jun,” the prince says, smiling with teeth. “You’re going to be my knight in less than an hour. Let’s just get comfortable, shall we?” 

The knight-to-be was speechless. 

Having lived in the Capitol and studied in the palace for so long, Wonwoo has seen Prince Junhui from afar. Three years ago, when the princes had come together for their annual meeting, Wonwoo spied the Eastern Prince from the library window on the third floor. Striding down the stone pathway of the main courtyard, Wen Junhui looked so unapproachable with his casually disinterested expression and his head held high. 

Wonwoo remembered watching with mild interest—he’s only ever seen the Eastern Prince in passing before and the man’s reputation preceded him. The knight candidate had _not_ been ready for the prince to look up straight at him. He remembered bowing automatically and hitting his head against the glass panels. Prince Wen Junhui had stared up at him with shock and obvious concern, an expression reminiscent of that of the Crowned Prince. 

_Ah, they really are brothers_ , Wonwoo had remembered thinking through the dull throb of his temple. His mentor had called and Wonwoo hastily made his escape. That had been the only encounter he’s had with the Fourth Prince, three floors apart and through a glass window. So it was safe to say that he didn’t know the prince through anything but stories—fantastic war song, loud grievances and quiet rumors. 

Wonwoo has heard these rumors about the Eastern Prince. He’s heard of while Prince Junhui seemed cold and terrifying, the prince was quite a child at heart and easily affectionate. Mouths also whispered that while the prince could take down a ten-thousand man army on his own, he fell prey easily to hostage situation, especially if the taken were children. These were mostly passing gossip from the Eastern stronghold’s staff so Wonwoo never took them quite to heart. Now, with his personal space invaded by a sweet smile and warm eyes, he wonders whether there was some truth to those words. 

Caught up in his own thoughts, the knight-to-be doesn’t realize his silence had been perceived as refusal. It’s only when the blinding smile became a sad curl of the lips did Wonwoo notice what had transpired. 

“I know,” Junhui laughs in resignation. He takes a step back, leaving an appropriate space between them. “If you were a top knight candidate, you probably wouldn’t have chosen me. I’m not as popular as I’d like to believe I am.’ 

“That’s—” 

“The Court didn’t give you a choice huh?” Junhui asks. Wonwoo’s lack of response spoke volumes. “I would let this go—after all, I can take care of myself just fine, haven’t had a knight in the past twenty-three years and I’m still here—but the Court’s not giving me a choice either. So I am very sorry.” 

“There is nothing to be sorry for, Your Highness,” Wonwoo replied, respectfully and appropriately. The Fourth Prince caught him off guard, but now Wonwoo feels in control again. “I declined to be a top candidate, knowing this might happen. I am also sorry that your match isn’t here with you today.” 

“Well, now I have another younger brother because of it. Not a terrible trade off,” Junhui shrugs. He looks at Wonwoo so earnestly that the knight-to-be feels a little off kilter again. “However, what are _you_ getting out of this?” 

Wonwoo is once again speechless. No one has ever asked him what he wanted to achieve as a knight. And when he was chosen for the Fourth Prince, no one asked him for his opinion or input. It was more of an order than a selection. 

“Wonwoo-hyung, it’s almost—Your Highness!” Seungkwan bursts through the doors only to stop in a complete halt and salute. His silver band gleamed brightly on his pinky. “I apologize. I will return later—” 

“At ease, I’m done here,” the prince insists. Junhui holds Wonwoo’s gaze for a lingering moment with a simple message: _think about it._  

Junhui sweeps out of the room in brisk steps, leaving a perplexed Wonwoo and equally bewildered Seungkwan. 

“Well, that’s new,” Seungkwan blinks. “I thought he’d want to stay so you two could walk out together.” 

“Only matched pairs go out together,” Wonwoo interjects. He sighs heavily. Now this question was going to weigh on his mind. What was he going to get out of this? 

“Oh, it’s nice to know that sometimes I know a little more than our brilliant scholar knight,” Seungkwan laughs. Wonwoo gives him a puzzled look. “Only if a prince chose that knight candidate do they walk out together. So obviously matches walk together.”    

“He…chose me?” 

“In front of the Court and everything,” Seungkwan nods. He looks over his shoulder and winks exaggeratedly. “I don’t know anything about that though.” 

Wonwoo isn’t sure of the feeling building in his chest, but he doesn’t want to burden the young knight as today was hectic enough. So he shakes off the uncertainty and smiles at Seungkwan.

“Tell me, what else has been happening?” Wonwoo asks with his usual demeanor—steady and calm. “I’ve been too preoccupied with all these little details that I have no idea what’s been happening around the Kingdom.”

“Ah hyung, _lots_ have happened in the past couple of days,” Seungkwan begins. “Honestly, I think it’s a pity that Seo Myungho ended up with the Lost Prince.”

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part will be rewritten for sure. I just needed to get this done with so I can go into the knight ceremony and IMPORTANT THINGS WILL HAPPEN. 
> 
> I had a very different ending to this short a little earlier and I might actually go with that one depending...I'm not sure how I want to start WonHui's relationship tbh, and I might end up changing how this part is depending on how their relationship makes sense with the rest of the story. 
> 
> LOL I'm sorry everyone, I'm literally piecing together the stories, editing them and reorganizing relationship dynamics as i spit these pieces out like three times a week LOL So if some things dont match forwards and backwards, it's cause I'm changing my mind LOL This collection has become like...a road map of how I think when I write stories... HAHAHA
> 
> Once again, we're starting up with the main storyline-ish (kind of LOL, i'm probably gonna backtrack soon) and hopefully you've enjoyed! Thanks for reading and I really could not do this without you all!! <3


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungkwan takes a trip down memory lane.

_**Seven Princes** , **four territories** , three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Princes & Four Territories: The Sixth Prince and the Western Territories

“—I can’t believe that you left me to deal with _your_ dearest older brother!” Seungkwan sighs dramatically. He burst into his Prince’s room ready to fling himself onto Vernon’s large bed, but stops himself when he sees the prince fast asleep on the floor.

Curled up on his side, Vernon was surrounded by large books and papers scattered on the floor, and Seungkwan suddenly had a flashback to when they first met. Back then, Vernon had been curled up under the dining room table, looking terribly un-prince-like. So terribly young for someone who needed to rule the Western Territories. 

The knight tiptoes over the mess on the floor towards the bed. Pulling the covers off, he throws the sheets over Vernon and the books surrounding him. Seungkwan is a little gentler with the pillow he tosses near the prince’s head. 

Usually, Seungkwan would have roused the prince and scolded him for his terrible habits, but lately—the past year had been hard. As much as Vernon was a prince and a ruler, at the end of the day, he was a nineteen year old boy who had trouble finding matching socks in the morning. Thankfully, the Western Territories were old and settled in its governance. 

As the oldest territory of the Kingdom, the Western Territories had well developed laws and protocols. So when the first son of the King left, it ran just fine on its own. It had been such a stable territory so the Court had no qualms declaring Vernon as the leader when he was an infant. At the time, it had been more of a ceremonial announcement—the Kingdom was returning the Western Territories to the rule of a prince with Western ancestry. And Vernon lived the first decade of his life peacefully. 

But then the rebels began causing a ruckus. In the past, they were just a tiny, fanatical group who wanted the Western Territories to return to its true state—a state of war and chaos ruled by fear and dark magic. Somehow, they started growing in number and in violence. The whispers of dark magic could be heard all throughout the territories, and its influence was inevitable. 

Finally, there was an attempt on the Sixth Prince’s life. 

Vernon had been fourteen, and the Crowned Prince couldn’t wait anymore. Per tradition, the youngest a prince could be to take a knight was eighteen. They had to be a man in the eyes of the Court. But the Crowned Prince overrode the Court, ruling Vernon to be a special case. The Western Territories were becoming dangerous, and the Capitol had no extra resources to spare with their immediate attention all focused in the East. 

So Seungcheol personally pulled knight candidates to the West, and Seungkwan had been one of three. This was also when he met Jeon Wonwoo, a Southern knight candidate who looked terribly cold and aloof but had one of the warmest hearts. 

“You are very young,” Wonwoo had observed in surprise. Seungkwan had just turned fourteen when he first stepped foot onto the Western Territories. “That’s pretty impressive. To be pulled here by the Crowned Prince.” 

“I—I’m not quite sure why I am here,” Seungkwan had admitted quietly. He had not been an exceptional knight candidate nor had he performed well in the annual physical review. When his name had been called, Seungkwan had almost laughed— _I didn’t know there was someone else with the last name_ Boo _!!_ And it had taken quite a moment for Seungkwan to realize that no, there was no one who shared his family name. 

“Well, the Crowned Prince must have chosen you for something,” Wonwoo had smiled. The curl of lips had destroyed any feeling of intimidation. “He never does anything without reason. Or at least that’s what he told me.” 

Seungkwan had remembered his admiration for the older knight candidate skyrocket. To have met with the Crowned Prince, what an honor. 

“So kids,” Soonyoung, the knight of the Crowned Prince, had said. They had all rushed to their feet as Soonyoung popped his head into the room they had settled into. “You guys were supposed to be introduced to the Sixth Prince like half an hour ago, but uh, we can’t find him.” 

“Was His Highness—?” Wonwoo had asked formally. When he stood in attention, Wonwoo had an aura that Seungkwan could only describe as reliable and sturdy. 

“Oh no, no, _no_ ,” Soonyoung had laughed. “The prince is safely in the castle somewhere. I can feel his presence and he is well. He probably just fell asleep in some corner and yeah—so, first assignment here in the Western Territories! Familiarize yourself with our western stronghold, the Fronting, and see if one of you guys can find Prince Vernon.” 

“Yes, Commander!” the knight candidates had chorused together. 

Seungkwan had just blinked when the other two suddenly disappeared. The First Knight had smiled encouragingly, and Seungkwan had forced himself to swallow the embarrassment, making his way past his commander. 

“Just do what you do best,” Soonyoung had called after him. Seungkwan had turned to respond only to see an empty doorway with no First Knight anywhere in sight. 

“Just do what I do best,” Seungkwan had mumbled. “So go eat?” 

His stomach had grumbled loudly just in time, and Seungkwan had thanked the heavens that his commander was nowhere to be found. While it was embarrassing, Seungkwan had decided to just follow his commander’s advice. Sure he had a good appetite, but what he truly did best was talking. Who better to talk to than the kitchen staff who served the Prince every day? 

If nothing else, Seungkwan had always prided himself in making friends no matter where he went. The Western stronghold would be no different. 

“Hey! Uh, do you know where the kitchens are?” Seungkwan had asked sheepishly to the first errand boy he saw. 

“I’m heading there right now sir,” the errand boy had replied nervously. Seungkwan had seen that skittish glance down at his knight candidate pin. 

“Perfect! Just lead the way then!” Seungkwan had responded happily. “How old are you?” 

“Fo-fourteen, sir,” the other had squeaked, obviously unprepared for the candidate’s interest. 

“ _Yo man_!” Seungkwan had exploded with his limited Western speak. “ _You and I friends!_ We’re the same age!” 

“You’re my age, sir—?” 

“Yeah, _yo man_ ,” Seungkwan had exclaimed. “Don’t be so formal! I’m Boo Seungkwan. Boo is my family name!” 

And that’s how Seungkwan had made his first friend at the Fronting. His friend had told him of the prince’s strange habit of falling asleep in the dining room, and somehow, Seungkwan had managed to trip over Vernon’s feet the moment he walked into the dining hall. The rest was history. 

“Seung—?” 

Seungkwan shakes himself from his reverie. Vernon blinks sleepily at him from the floor.  

“Just go back to sleep,” Seungkwan shushed. He kneels down to maneuver the pillow under the prince’s head. “Your back’s going to hate you in the morning.” 

“Hm,” Vernon hums. He wriggles over until his back knocks over a stack of books. Seungkwan winces at the noise but Vernon didn’t even seem to notice. The prince pats the empty patch of floor he created. “You. Here.” 

“I think I’m going to—” Seungkwan starts nervously. 

“ _You_. Here,” Vernon says louder, his voice still husky with sleep. “Order.” 

“ _Woah man_ , what an abuse of power,” Seungkwan scoffs, but he settles into the offered spot, facing his prince. “My back’s—no, _I’m_ going to hate you tomorrow morning.” 

“ _Love you too_ ,” Vernon whispers in his Western tongue. 

Seungkwan freezes. 

“ _Love you, truly and dearly_ ,” Vernon continues. His eyes are closed, but he doesn’t hesitate when he leans in for a chaste kiss. The prince misses a little and kisses the top corner of his knight’s lip, but that was enough for Seungkwan’s heart to skip a beat. 

This was not appropriate. _They_ were not appropriate. He was just a _knight_ and Vernon was a _prince—_  

“ _Truly and dearly_ ,” Seungkwan whispers back. Tomorrow, they’ll behave appropriately, but tonight, Seungkwan leans in and meets his prince halfway. 

Just for tonight.

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I thought, my brain just doesn't work linearly. I tried really hard to just focus on the knighting ceremony and I kept drawing blanks. I knew what I wanted to write but no words came. So I just allowed myself to go on whatever tangent I felt like and wah-lah! I started writing again LOL
> 
> Sigh, I'm sorry guys. V___V I guess this really will just be random stories everywhere...sigh, I tried so hard to plan it and move it toward a certain direction but then I just lost all my words. (This is what ALWAYS happens when i try to write a plot driven story, siiiiigh) 
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mingyu can't seem to get away from his knight, and Minghao is a particularly good finder.

_Seven Princes, four territories, three districts, **two urban legends** and one crown. _

\---

Urban Legend: The Lost Prince and His Knight 

“Can you _stop following me_?” Mingyu exclaims in exasperation. He spent the past fifteen minutes running around the maze-like market of the Capitol in hopes of losing his stalker, but unfortunately, the Eastern man was just as impressive at keeping a close mark on him as he was in fighting. 

“I’m your knight,” Minghao says with a deadpan look. “Where would I go if not with you?” 

“Okay, you’re new to the Capitol and I get it,” Mingyu sighs. He breathes in deeply and lets it out through pursed lips. “I probably look like a model citizen and all—” 

“About that,” the knight-to-be—the knight? No, that’s not possible—quips. 

“— _but_ I can’t really help you finding a place to live or anything like that because I’m having a pretty hard time myself so,” Mingyu talks over the interruption. He motions in front of him in a mock courteous gesture. “Please, have a wonderful day and I _don’t_ hope to see you around. Okay?”  

“Can you at least let me take a look at that cut on your forehead?” Minghao huffs in annoyance. Mingyu almost wants to scream. Why was _he_ annoyed? _Mingyu_ was the one who should be annoyed, and he was! 

“There’s nothing wrong with my head okay?” Mingyu groans. He pointedly ignores that eyebrow raise the other man gives him. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m a functional adult and I can take care of my own boo-boos.” 

“Half your face is literally covered in blood,” Minghao grimaces. 

“What?” Mingyu gasps. He touches his face and he’s horrified at the blood flakes that rubbed off his cheek. 

“我的天啊,” Minghao mutters. He pulls out a small handkerchief and pulls some moisture from the air to get it damp. Approaching his prince, Minghao eases Mingyu’s hand away and presses the wet cloth against the other’s cheek, wiping away the drying blood. “像一个孩子一样.” 

 _My god, just like a child_. 

“Hey,” Mingyu scoffs. After a day of being chased and almost blown up, Mingyu found himself reluctant to move away from the other’s careful hands. There was a kindness and caring in Minghao’s actions that he’s sorely craved.  “I resent that.” 

Minghao stares up at him in shock. It takes Mingyu a moment to realize what happened, but when he does, he pulls away as quickly as he could. 

“你听得懂,” Minghao says quietly in complete awe. “这就是我和你的—” 

 _You can understand me. You and I have—_  

“There is no _you and I_ ,” Mingyu declares. He turns to run—not a very smart move as the knight had proven himself quite adept at tailing him. But he doesn’t even go two steps when a hand grabs him and shoves him against the wall. 

“是的，没有 _我和你_ 不过有 _你和我_ ,” Minghao says firmly. Using his arms as barriers, he effectively traps Mingyu against the wall, but nothing kept Mingyu rooted in place as much as Minghao’s gaze. It was steady, firm, dependable and—Mingyu doesn’t know why he feels like he can trust this man. 

 _You’re right, there isn’t a_ me and you _, but there is_ you and I. 

“There’s a Lost Prince and his knight.” 

Staring into the face of determination, Mingyu knows he’s lost. So when he shakes the other man off and starts walking, Mingyu doesn’t even bother to look back. He knows Minghao was right behind him. 

\--- 

Minghao doesn’t say anything as he followed Mingyu down streets and through alleyways. He feels like he’s said too much already. 

He doesn’t know how to describe the elation and relief that his prince could _understand_ him. Just a couple hours ago, the thought of a communication barrier didn’t even occur to him. Minghao had known that he was going to be the knight to Prince Wen Junhui and at least, the Eastern Prince spoke the Eastern tongue fluently.          

But when the royal seal gleamed brightly beneath their feet, Minghao had been struck with sudden fear. The Lost Prince didn’t know any Eastern tongue and Minghao’s Capitol speak was conversational at best. His mind had been quick to conjure terrible misunderstandings—did Mingyu know of his background? What if his prince hadn’t wanted a knight? What if he thought Minghao had cursed him or something? 

So when his prince bolted, Minghao was quick to follow. If nothing else, he wasn’t willing to leave loose ends hanging. Mingyu wasn’t very difficult to follow. It was obvious his prince always relied on his speed to get away, and he was surprisingly fast. Fortunately, Minghao was faster. 

Mingyu finally stopped to confront him, and while Minghao didn’t quite understand most of what the Lost Prince was saying, he got enough of it and responded the best he could. Minghao had really wanted to be a good and patient knight, but the blood drying on Mingyu’s face was really starting to worry him. 

“Half your face is literally covered in blood,” Minghao says in worry. It comes out a lot harsher than he meant, but he just wanted to get to the point. Mingyu inspects it in horror and this makes Minghao smile. He moves in closer with the damp cloth and starts wiping away the blood flakes. “我的天啊, 像一个孩子一样.” 

“Hey, I resent that.” 

It was then that the fear lifted off his shoulders. Mingyu could understand him. _His prince can understand him_. 

So when Mingyu made another move to run, Minghao didn’t let him. No, he needed his prince to understand why he was here. Minghao was his _knight_. Mingyu was his _prince_. There was nothing more than that. 

“There’s a Lost Prince and his knight.” 

Even though he’s not sure whether his tone or grammar were correct, Minghao finished in Standard Capitol to be clear. He doesn’t know whether the words really got through to Mingyu or not, but when Mingyu shoves him away, there was much less malice behind it. Even as the prince walks away, it’s slow as though he were waiting. And just as Minghao thought, the prince only hastened his pace when Minghao let his footsteps be heard. 

Minghao follows quietly and he can’t help that smile that spread across his lips. This was probably really silly, but this was _his prince_. His prince who was tall and handsome with charming eyes and blood flakes on his temple. His prince who was a diamond in the rough, who clearly possessed some drive, who— 

“Well, we’re here,” Mingyu shrugs. And Minghao was embarrassed to admit that he hadn’t been paying attention to where they were going. “It’s tiny, but its home.” 

\--- 

Mingyu wasn’t sure why he was worried. His home was a tiny little room with a cramped kitchenette like space and a shared restroom across the hall. It was actually much nicer than some spaces available in the Market District. But he wonders if Minghao was expecting more. 

He’s not entirely sure whether he’s actually a prince. This could all just be a scam—a damn convincing one in that case. But Mingyu has heard that Eastern magic was different and some of it could pass off as miracle work to the ignorant. He was definitely an ignoramus. Or maybe the other man was crazy? Or maybe under the influence of some recreational tonics? Or maybe _Mingyu_ had been slipped something? There were so many questions bouncing through his mind and no answers. 

The only thing he was sure of was that this man’s name was Xu Minghao— _and he’s your knight_ , his mind supplies, but Mingyu ignores that. 

“Nice place,” Minghao comments. Mingyu frowns. He’s not sure whether that was sarcasm or not because there was no way it could be genuine. At the same time, Minghao steps through the door with an earnest expression and curious eyes. “It’s straightforward like you.” 

Mingyu blinks. He looks around his place. It’s small and cramped and well, he guesses it’s not bad. While he really only had about a travel bag’s worth of personal belongs, his single room was tiny enough that it looked crowded. Crowded, but not messy and _definitely_ not dirty. Having worked in a kitchen growing up, Mingyu likes to keep everything organized if not clean. Although, he’s not sure about Minghao’s chosen description. 

“How does it look ‘straightforward’?” Mingyu asks, accidentally sounding more annoyed than confused. “It’s just a room.” 

Of course, this was the moment Minghao steps onto the loose floorboard that slides out from under his foot, causing him to lose his balance. Stumbling a couple steps back, the Easterner steadies himself quickly. Mingyu stares in quiet admiration. That particular floorboard slides out way too fast for most people to even react. When he first moved here, Mingyu definitely landed on his back a couple of time because of that damned spot. He still does sometimes. 

“Well, it’s straightforward in not wanting me here,” Minghao chuckles dryly. It takes Mingyu a moment to realize that the other was now outside his door, leaning against the wooden frame. It takes Mingyu another moment to realize the connotation of what the Easterner was saying and immediately his heart clenched painfully. 

“I never said I didn’t want you here—” Mingyu stops himself from continuing. That’s it. This confirmed it. He was cursed or put under a spell or drugged. There was no way he felt bad about some stranger feeling unwanted. That’s it! He knows now! 

And he’s angry. 

\--- 

Minghao doesn’t know how to read the sudden anger that appeared on his Prince’s face. 

“What did you do to me?” Mingyu seethes. “I just _met_ you!” 

Minghao blinks but doesn’t respond right away. His grandfather always told him to observe a situation thoroughly, especially when it involved angry people. After all, anger was the most transparent of all emotions. 

“How can I care about you when I just met you?” Mingyu elaborates. 

“Oh, so it goes both ways,” Minghao says out loud on complete accident. He didn’t mean to vocalize his surprise, and as he thought, it agitated his prince even more. 

“What do you mean _oh, it goes both ways_?”  

“I care about you too,” Minghao replies. He fights the flush that rises on his cheeks. Minghao was not really one for open declarations of affection, but he figures his prince needed it. “You’re my prince so I care for you.” 

“You don’t even _know_ me—” 

“How old are you?” Minghao interrupts. He smiles as Mingyu sputters a little taken aback. 

“Twenty?” Mingyu answers, but his confusion makes it a question. 

“怎么自己多大都不知道?” Minghao scoffs, and he couldn’t contain his glee when Mingyu frowned at him. His prince could _understand_. 

 _How do you not know how old you are?_  

“I’m twenty, okay?” Mingyu huffs. “Born during the second year of the Western Wars.” 

“Me too,” Minghao smiles—天啊, he’s been smiling so much his cheeks were hurting. “I’m also twenty this season.” 

“Good for you!” Mingyu shoots back with a stink eye. 

“A typical citizen of the Kingdom lives for about sixty years,” Minghao continues undeterred. Mingyu’s eyebrows go up in confusion. “If you’re twenty and I’m twenty, we’ll have at least forty years to get to know each other. Plenty of time.” 

Mingyu stares at him with wide eyes. His mouth opens to say something but it snaps shut after no words come out. Minghao fights the smile curling at the corner of his lips. His prince looked quite similar to—ah what were those fish called, oh yes—a goldfish. 

“I’m almost _one hundred percent_ sure that you just said a pick up line,” Mingyu accuses.

“A ‘pick up line’?” Minghao wonders. He knows this phrase. He’s heard it before. 

“When you flirt with people?” Mingyu explains only to be met with Minghao’s blank look. “Uh, when you like someone?” 

“Oh then I definitely said a ‘pick up line’ to you,” Minghao agrees. He’s not sure what happened, but all the fight left Mingyu’s eyes. It was like the anger just dissipated and all that was left was embarrassment. 

“If you’re a scammer, you’re pretty good,” Mingyu sighs, burying his face into his hands. He sinks onto the bed and sighs deeply. “I can’t keep up with you.” 

“I keep up with you just fine though,” Minghao says. He steps inside the door again and purposefully misses the sliding floor board. “And that’s enough.” 

“Alright, what do you want?” Mingyu mumbles. He hasn’t lifted his head, but Minghao can see the red flush on his prince’s neck. “Money, I don’t have any. My life, well, I can’t beat you so just take it. Unless you wanted the Precious Treasure’s secret recipe for crab stew, but that I’m taking to my grave.” 

\--- 

“Come to the palace with me,” the knight said. “You don’t believe me, but the Royal Family won’t lie to you.” 

“Go to the palace with you,” Mingyu repeats. This man’s words were getting more and more ridiculous as the time went on. Yet somehow, Mingyu could not sense any insincerity from the Eastern man. “And get arrested with you. Perfect. At least, now, I know there’s something wrong with you.” 

“I _was_ a knight candidate. There’s no reason for me to lie about that,” Minghao frowns. He pulls out a pin from his pocket—oh, it _looked_ like a real knight candidate pin for sure. “And you haven’t done anything wrong. Why would they arrest you?” 

“You know what, you’re right,” Mingyu sighs. He throws his hands up in the air and surrenders. “If you’re a scammer, then they’d arrest you. If you’re real—I severely doubt it, then we can solve this misunderstanding because _I_ am not a prince.” 

“The contract never lies,” Minghao says firmly. “I could never enter into knighthood with someone who carried no royal blood.” 

“Alright, alright,” Mingyu nods. He stands up and motions towards the door. “Let’s head out there. To the palace so we can both continue on with our days.” 

“Are you sure you don’t want to take anything with you?” Minghao asks, looking around curiously. “I don’t know if they’ll let you come back.” 

“Are you— _fine_ ,” Mingyu sighs, completely surrendering. He pulls out his outside pack and throws in his sparse personal belongings: a couple of letters from his best friend, a picture with his mother and his mother’s ring. “We’re going to go with everything you want!” 

“No clothes?” 

“If I am a prince, the palace should have clothes for me,” Mingyu snaps. 

“Good point,” Minghao agrees and stares. Mingyu motions at the door again with the implicit _you first_ , but Minghao doesn’t even budge.  “My Prince, this is my first time in the Capitol.” 

“And?” 

Minghao looks away, and Mingyu found himself following the other’s line of vision mischievously. It was the first time he’s seen the knight openly flustered and Mingyu’s not sure when he’d get the chance to see this again. Minghao couldn’t turn his head any more but he stubbornly refused to meet Mingyu’s eyes. 

“I don’t know where the palace is from here,” Minghao admits in one rushed breath. 

“First, you ask me to go to the palace with you, and now you don’t know where it is,” Mingyu says with a blank expression. Minghao bites his lower lip and turns his head the other way. Knowing he was out of the other’s line of sight completely, Mingyu allows himself to smile. Teasing the knight was much more fun than he had expected. “At least know _that_ much.” 

“人家没来过吗,” Minghao pouts and then gapes in horror. Mingyu couldn’t stifle his laughter. _I’ve never been to the Capitol okay—_ had come out so cute and whiny, so different than the serious and rather sarcastic image the Easterner had presented. 

“Are you trying to be cute with me?” 

“No!” Minghao scowls, whipping around to glare at the other. Mingyu couldn’t drop his smile fast enough, and the knight looked taken aback at the other’s wide smile. 

There was a moment of silence—Mingyu didn’t even realize that he was holding his breath—and then Minghao smiles. It wasn’t a smirk or a look of fond exasperation. It was a full-fledged smile with teeth and eye crinkling and smile lines. 

The silence is broken when a giggle escaped. Mingyu isn’t too sure who started it, but it didn’t take very long for both of them to succumb to the giggle fest. Nothing was really that funny, but Mingyu didn’t want to stop laughing. He leaned into Minghao’s shoulder and the knight offered it so readily. 

It just felt right. 

\--- 

There was no reason for Minghao to be laughing. He was more embarrassed than anything, but the weight of Mingyu’s head on his shoulder was perfect. 

To be honest, he expected an extravagant knighting ceremony—lavish receptions, traditional reading of vows and formal induction into the Knighthood. Minghao didn’t expect to tackle his prince to the floor and recite his vows on the dusty floor of an alleyway. He never thought he’d chase his prince throughout the Market District and discover aspects of their bond through pure coincidence. 

It was beyond his imagination that he would be standing here in a rickety one room apartment, laughing into his prince’s hair with the other’s nose bumping against his collarbone with every breathless chuckle. 

Even when the laughter faded into quiet breathing, neither of them moved. 

“We might want to get to the palace before the sun sets huh?” Mingyu mumbles against Minghao’s shoulder. 

“Yeah,” Minghao agrees. 

“In a moment,” Mingyu mutters. 

“Yeah,” Minghao agrees.

It was beyond his imagination, yet Minghao is beginning to think this was all he ever wanted.

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I APOLOGIZE FOR THE HUFFLEPUFF JOKE IN THE SUMMARY. LOL I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF OKAY.
> 
> Hi guys, the first part of my internship just ended so I was SWAMPED with projects the past week. So as an apology, here's more GyuHao!!! :) I apologize for how disjointed it sounds. I actually wrote the first two parts maybe like four weeks ago? Then I dropped it 'cause I didn't know how to continue. So yeah! The feeling might be a little different in the beginning and in the end? 
> 
> How has everyone been? Busy? School start for peeps? Work been picking up? As always, THANK YOU for reading!!! It ALWAYS makes me smile to see peeps enjoying~


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The First Knight and the Fifth Knight have history but no future. And Seokmin was okay with that. He can wait.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Princes: The First Knight and the Fifth Knight 

Kwon Soonyoung has seen many things in his twenty one winters. As the knight of the Crowned Prince, he’s seen the best of the best and the worst of the worst—from the luxurious coasts of the Southern Territories and the opulent architecture of the Western Territories to the desolate mountains of the Eastern Territories and the insufferable winters of the Northern Territories. So it wasn’t an empty boast to say Soonyoung wasn’t easily unsettled. 

And never in his life, did he think he’d be so shocked in the familiar Capitol, a place he reigned supreme only second to his prince. Standing on the balcony next to the royal family, Soonyoung couldn’t stifle the sudden gasp. 

It was the knighting ceremony for their Fifth Prince, Lee Jihoon of the North. The young prince had finally turned eighteen and the Court deemed him ready for his own knight. The selection seemed quite random as the candidate chosen had not been a top knight candidate nor had they any spectacular record. 

Soonyoung had been quite disappointed that the bright knight candidate from the Southern Territories, Jeon Wonwoo, had not been chosen. Instead, a seemingly average knight candidate was chosen to protect the prince of the Kingdom’s most conflict ridden territory. 

Lee Seokmin scored pretty mediocre in every area. He hadn’t been trained by anyone worth mentioning as the Merchant District had very few spectacular instructors to begin with. The knight candidate was also only sixteen years of age. Young, average and not of any notable blood. Soonyoung spent quite a long time trying to figure out _why_ this Lee Soekmin was chosen. 

When Lee Seokmin walked out in his navy blue ceremonial uniform and slicked back hair, most of the audience showed varying levels of shock at how poised and mature the sixteen year old looked. While he would agree with those observations, Soonyoung was shocked for an entirely different reason. 

He knew that face. In fact, he knew that face all too well. From those dark eyes to that sharp nose to those full lips. But Soonyoung didn’t associate that face with _Lee Seokmin_ , the knight-to-be. Oh no, he knew that face as _Lee Dokyeom_ , the singer at a shady Market District bar and the _perhaps_ that knight had been nursing in his heart for the last few months. 

“I, Lee Seokmin,” the knight-to-be recites. Soonyoung flinches almost violently. Oh, he knows this voice too well. His prince glances at him with concern, but the knight keeps his gaze forward. “I swear my life to Prince Lee Jihoon of the Northern Territories. If my prince would take me, I wish to serve, protect and stand by my prince until he needs my service no more.” 

“From the honorable houses of Kings and of the North, I take Lee Seokmin to be my knight,” the Fifth Prince responds. He holds out his hand, and Seokmin gets onto one knee. “As long as you serve, protect and stand by me, I hold you in my soul and no further than my heart. May your service end when my life does.” 

“Even beyond death, I will swear,” Lee Seokmin vows. He presses a gentle kiss against Jihoon’s ring. The royal seal shimmers beneath their feet, waiting. “To my prince and then my kingdom.” 

"To my knight in mind and body," Jihoon echoes.

The seal shines bright and blinding before fading away into the white marble stage. Jihoon presents him with his ring. Seokmin secures the simple band on his pinky and the Fifth Prince’s symbol carves itself into the metal—a single arrow that shifts north like a compass. 

The knight stands up and salutes his prince—closed fist against his heart with only his pinky finger out to display his ring, his prince and his pride. 

Soonyoung was beyond surprised when Seokmin looked up towards the balcony and stared straight at him. He doesn’t even realize that he held his breath until Seungcheol taps him gently on the wrist.

“Sixteen is a little young,” the Crowned Price comments. To any other person, the statement was innocent enough, an observation of their newest knight. But unfortunately, Soonyoung knows his prince recognizes the young knight now. It was a bit of an open secret that Seungcheol escapes the palace to roam the other districts, and Soonyoung knows that his prince got a fleeting glimpse of Dokyeom. “I would have never guessed just from his appearance.” 

Seokmin looks away and follows his prince off the stage. Inhaling deeply, Soonyoung finds himself at a loss of words. For someone who was known for his wit and limitless energy, the First Knight doesn’t know how to react. 

Having met Lee Dokyeom at a bar, Soonyoung knew the singer as a man of great talent and perseverance and in possession of the most beautiful smile he’s even seen. The other man had been funny, witty and able to keep up with Soonyoung boundless energy, even exceed it at times. The knight was unable to deny that he had greatly enjoyed and the secret hand holding beneath the bar counter and the flirty whispers in the dark.    

But now, knowing that he had seriously considered a _boy_ for any kind of romantic pursuit, Soonyoung felt a little sick. He had taken advantage of a _sixteen year old_. A sixteen year old who was now bound in knighthood with a prince Soonyoung considers as close as a younger brother by blood. 

“I wouldn’t have known either,” Seungcheol repeats, reaching out to grab his knight’s hand. Soonyoung doesn’t fight it when his prince intertwines their fingers. “If no one told me, I would have assumed the same.” 

“I—I need a moment, your Highness,” Soonyoung mutters, tearing his hand away. Seungcheol allows it and merely stares at his escaping knight with concern. 

“Did you guys make a bet or something?” the Fourth Prince asks in confusion, but Soonyoung doesn’t stay long enough to hear his prince’s answer. 

With a couple simple spells, he flees onto the highest reaches of the palace, atop the command room. Soonyoung stands on the round roof, waiting for his heart to slow down. Finally alone, Soonyoung buries his face in his hands. 

“Hyung, I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.” 

Or maybe _not_ alone. Soonyoung turns towards the familiar and now unfamiliar voice. The new knight had not even taken off his ceremonial garb, and the brand new broadsword clanked noisily against all the metal embellishment down his pants. Seokmin looked just as good in uniform as he did in an over-sized large cotton shirt. This was how Soonyoung knew he got it bad. 

“Shouldn’t you be with your prince?” the First Knight asks stiffly. “Leaving your prince right after being knighted, not a very promising projection of your service.” 

“I told my prince that I needed to speak to you and he allowed my leave,” Seokmin responded equally stuffy and formal. Soonyoung was almost shamed to say he expected the radiant smile that spread over the younger’s lips. Doky—no, Seokmin could never stay too serious for too long. “Please, hyung. Can I explain myself?” 

“And if I say no,” Soonyoung asserts. He doesn’t really want to hear why Seokmin worked at a bar, and he definitely doesn’t want to know whether the _boy_ shared his feeling. Yet at the same time, Soonyoung was desperate for the boy to explain—why? 

“I really like you,” Seokmin says with a sudden shyness that Dokyeom has never had. Seemingly startled by his own declaration, the younger started rambling, completely red in the face.  “But you’re the knight to the Crowned Prince and so accomplished. Of course, I recognized you the first night and you’re probably able to get _anyone_ you wanted and I’m just newly knighted and, well, I’m sure you’ve seen my scores and I’m not really that great so I mean I do understand that you wouldn’t ever like me but—” 

“Dokyeom, no, Seokmin, wait,” Soonyoung interrupts, grabbing the other’s elbow. The First Knight doesn’t even notice how he automatically reached out. It was reminiscent of their evenings together: Dokyeom’s energy sudden spiking way too high and Soonyoung physically halting the man before they got kicked out for being too loud. He forces the smile off his lips. “You think I wouldn’t like you because you’re not _qualified_?” 

“I mean, you seemed so shocked and,” Seokmin continues. “I would understand! For someone in such high standing to sudden realize that, uh, someone from a lower standing was essentially lying to you—” 

“Lee D—no, _Lee Seokmin_ ,” Soonyoung interrupts again. He couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped his lips. “I’m twenty one.” 

“—and?” the younger knight questions hesitantly. 

“I’m twenty one and _you_ are sixteen,” Soonyoung clarifies. 

“And one day, I’ll be twenty one and you’ll be twenty six,” Seokmin replies in apparent confusion. “Hyung, I’m only five years younger than you.” 

“ _Only five years_ —may the Goddesses forgive me,” Soonyoung actually laughs. “You’re not even a _man_ yet! Do you know how shitty it feels to know you’ve taken advantage of a _boy_?” 

“Taken advantage?” Seokmin looks more confused than before. In his confusion, the boy finally looked his age. And it scares Soonyoung to know how much his heart skips at every non-Dokyeom expression he sees. “I’m the one who lied to _you_. Shouldn’t it have been my fault for taking advantage of the situation?” 

Now, Soonyoung feels a little foolish. Apparently, Seokmin had never even considered age as an issue, and the other’s nonchalance about it makes the First Knight wonder whether he should stop worrying about it too. But the nagging voice in his head shames him: _just a boy and you’ve thought about putting your hands on him, pervert, dirty, barbaric, just like the people you came from—_  

“Can—can I take advantage of the situation one more time?” Seokmin asks, steeling himself for something Soonyoung isn’t too sure of. The First Knight feels his breath catch as the younger walks up to him stiffly, similar to that of a wooden puppet. Standing almost nose to nose, Soonyoung is a little cross-eyed looking at the other. Still he doesn’t move, he wants to know what the younger wanted to do and he was almost guilty to say that he anticipated it. 

“If age is an issue, I don’t mind waiting. I’ve only got two more winters before I’m eighteen,” Seokmin whispers. He’s shaking, and Soonyoung doesn’t stop himself from reaching out for the other’s hand, squeezing gently for reassurance. Busy re-familiarizing himself with the warmth of the other’s palm, Soonyoung almost doesn’t react when he feels lips against his forehead. And when he does, the younger had already pulled away. 

“You—” 

“Hyung, please wait for me,” Seokmin requests. “Next time when I come to you like this, I’ll be a man. A great man and an accomplished knight, so—I think I might love you.” 

“Then get going,” Soonyoung shrugs. He’s good at feigning nonchalance, even when his entire body was burning. “Two years is the most I’d wait for anyone anyways.” 

“So you’ll wait,” Seokmin gasps, clearly surprised at the response. 

“Lee Seokmin,” the First Knight chuckles, leaning in to place a friendly hand on the other’s shoulder. “The one thing you’ll learn about me is that I don’t care about status or supposed greatness. If I care about you, there is no condition you really need to fulfill—although I guess in this case, age does become a concern.” 

“I’ll grow up, I mean, I’ll be a man and—” 

“Time will move even without you asking,” Soonyoung smiles fondly. Using the leverage he had on the other’s shoulder, the First Knight pulls the younger in for a hug. Seokmin goes rigid, and Soonyoung tries so hard not to laugh. “So don’t take too long. Two years is all I’m giving you.” 

But two years later, the Crowned Prince was missing and Kwon Soonyoung had just vanished into thin air. Thankfully, while Soonyoung was only willing to wait two years, Seokmin doesn’t mind waiting forever. And in a blink of an eye, the young knight finds himself a harvest away from twenty-one. 

“You are a fool,” Jihoon said. He caught Seokmin fiddling with a pure white dagger—a congratulations gift from the First Knight for his first successful mission. “A sad fool.” 

“Ah, but I am a fool in love,” his knight jests back. “Are you really not going to Prince Junhui’s knight ceremony?” 

“No,” Jihoon answers flatly, betraying no emotions. However, Seokmin knew his prince had been sulking quietly. Jihoon loved his older brother quite fiercely, but he loved this kingdom more. “But you’ll be going.” 

“Because of the Court?” 

“When is it not?” Jihoon snorts unattractively. “The Nine Families of Old really just need to disassemble.” 

“Won’t happen in our lifetimes for sure,” Seokmin shrugs. He slips the dagger back into its sheath and into one of his many concealed pockets. “What should I tell the Second Prince?” 

“Nothing,” Jihoon answers. His eyes are glassy with a faraway look. “It’s better if Jeonghan-hyung knows nothing.” 

“Of course Your Highness.”

 

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm actually in a rush somewhere right now so imma try and keep my end notes short. (but i type fast so LOL might still be long) 
> 
> Heeeey guys, soooo here's a little on Soonyoung! I feel so bad 'cause I always write him so serious but in this verse, he's quite a witty and energetic fellow. I might actually write on how Soonyoung and Seokmin met at the bar and maybe a knight meeting before Seungcheol disappeared. I really want to do a little tidbit on the Prince's annual meetings before Seungcheol went missing...ah, we'll get to that eventually!!
> 
> I hope everyone enjoyed the Gyuhao last chap and i hope to return to them soon! However, coming up, I do want to introduce Jeonghan so that's probably gonna be...next Wed? maybe a little earlier, maybe a little later, but I do wanna touch on the Second Prince before we continue!
> 
> Thanks for all the support and 100 KUDOS!!! I will have a little something special for everyone in the next chap! :))))) You guys are great!!! <3 <3 <3
> 
> EDIT: OH MY GOD I'M SO EMBARRASSED, I CALLED JIHOON THE FOURTH PRINCE. I'M SORRY JUN.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Seventh Prince attending his first annual meeting of Princes.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Princes: The Annual Meeting

“For someone who _lives_ here,” Jihoon comments dryly. “Our dear Crowned Prince sure is late.” 

“I bet he’s going to teleport in in ten minutes,” Junhui calls out, grinning from ear to ear. “And his excuse will be that his map was malfunctioning.” 

“He used that excuse last year,” Jeonghan scoffs. “ _And_ the year before that.” 

“Let’s give him a little more credit hm?” Jisoo chuckles. “Maybe this year he’ll actually walk through the doors and have a legitimate excuse.” 

“Please excuse me when I say I don’t share your hopes,” Vernon comments dryly. 

“What do you think Chan?” Junhui asks with an encouraging smile. 

“I—I think Seungcheol-hyungnim will be here eventually,” the fourteen year old Seventh Prince stammers. 

“Oh my god, he’s calling Seungcheol-hyung:  _hyungnim_ ,” Jihoon laughs. “As though he’s actually someone worth that much respect!” 

“Jihoon, the Crowned Prince _is_ a title worth that much respect,” Jisoo scolds without much force. “At least the title is.” 

“ _Burn_ ,” Vernon snickers in his Western tongue. 

Pulling on his newly fitted jacket, Chan smiles nervously. This was his first year coming to the annual meetings of their brothers, and he would be flat out lying to say he wasn’t intimidated. Of course, Chan has met all of his brothers casually, but this was the first time he sat in on an official work meeting. Here, around this table, sat some of the most powerful people in their kingdom. And if he really thought about it, they _were_ the kingdom. 

At the head of the table, the Crowned Prince had his own seat carved from wood of a sacred tree in the Southern Territories. Even without his brother there, the dark wood seemed to warn off all those unworthy. The Second Prince was to the right while the Third Prince sat to the left. Jeonghan governed all three districts with a gentle smile and flip of his hair, and Jisoo sat at the head of the Church, accompanying lost souls to salvation. The three oldest brothers were the trinity that held the kingdom together, from foreign exchanges to internal affairs to spiritual guidance. 

After them, the Fourth and Fifth Prince sat across from each other. There was no person in their kingdom who didn’t know of the turbulent Eastern and Northern Territories. Just the names Wen Junhui and Lee Jihoon struck fear and respect in the hearts of many. Unlike his usual business demeanor, Junhui was playfully baiting Jihoon to bet money on when their eldest brother would show up. Jihoon, known for his cool and distant attitude, was sticking out his tongue and refusing to call—“Hyung, what kind of idiot do you think I am?”  

Sitting across from him, the Sixth Prince was leaning on the table and laughing at the banter that was going on around him. They only had a two year age difference, but Vernon was already the governor of the Western Territories. His older brother has had a knight since he was fourteen—the same age Chan was now! With the rebel problems and the attempt on his life, Vernon was not a prince to be underestimated. Chan knows first-hand that while his older brother was relatively chill and laid back, Vernon had a resolve of steel and unwavering mettle.  

Chan knows _all_ his brothers personally, and they’ve never let him feel intimidated. However, maybe it was just the sharp cut of their uniforms and the glistening medals on their chests that made Chan feel small. Oh so small and so painfully self-conscious of how young fourteen was but, at the same time, how old fourteen could be. 

“I don’t know why Cheol even insists on these annual meetings,” Jeonghan sighs. The Second Prince leans back into his chair and groans. “It’s not like we don’t communicate among ourselves.” 

“Well, it’s nice to see everyone in one place,” Jisoo says gently. There was something so calming about the older man’s voice, and Chan isn’t sure whether it had to do with Jisoo’s inherent power or whether it was just experience speaking at the Church. “It’s almost like when we were children.” 

“Oh, hyung is still a large child at heart,” Jihoon scoffs. “Did you know what he asked me to bring this time? Pastries. He asked me to bring _pastries_.” 

“Oh! Did you?” Vernon jumps in. “Those things are good!” 

“See, the actual child gets excited,” Jihoon laughs. “None for you guys. I brought them for Chan because he’s never had any.” 

Chan looks up startled at the mention of his name. He had five pairs of eyes staring at him, and his vocal chords refused to make sound. Chan doesn’t know why the same brothers he play fought with the other day were suddenly so distant and their smiles so terrifying. It was like they expected him to be like them—powerful, great, feared and awe inspiring. 

“Don’t look like he wants any!” Vernon crows. “I get first dibs!” 

“Yeah, because you were glaring at him,” Junhui chides. Sitting next to him, Junhui pats Chan reassuringly on the shoulder. “Ignore Sixlet and take what you deserve. Jihoonie always brings the best pastries.” 

“I really don’t know why you guys like them so much,” Jihoon sighs. “It’s literally pastry dough with some jam.” 

“Have you not heard that pastries must be made with cold butter?” Vernon asks, pushing up non-existent glasses with his pinky finger. “It’s to allow the dough to flake better.”  

“Woah, someone actually sounds knowledgeable,” Jeonghan gasps. “Is this the same little brother who almost burned down the Fronting trying to heat water?” 

“ _Hyung_ ,” Vernon cringes. “Why you gotta call me out like that?” 

“Huh, so is it better with cold butter or frozen butter?” Jihoon asks. He actually looks mildly curious. “I’m just asking because most of the stuff in our kitchens is frozen.” 

“Honestly I have no idea,” Vernon shrugs. “I just heard it from Seungkwan.” 

“Another person who doesn’t cook,” Jeonghan says deadpan. “Great resource.” 

“To be honest, Jeonghan, you wouldn’t know any better,” Jisoo quips. 

“No one’s quoting _me_ on cooking though,” the Second Prince laughs. He makes a face at Jisoo, but it looks so ridiculous that Junhui fakes a coughing fit to mask his laughter. “That was funny huh?” 

“Of course not, our dear Second Prince,” Jihoon declares sarcastically to which Junhui nods quickly, still quite red in the face from trying to suppress his mirth. 

“Aish, you guys need to learn from Chan,” Jeonghan scoffs. He sounded stern but the curl of his lips give him away. “Start calling me _Jeonghan hyungnim_ , okay?” 

“Yes, _hyungnim_ ,” Jihoon and Junhui chorused together. They shared a look from across the table and burst out in giggles. 

Chan tries to just shake off the strange feeling. It was a little jarring to try and reconcile the kingdom’s most powerful princes with his playful brothers. The stiff shouldered uniforms and satin sashes were in such contrast with their smiling faces and typical banter. 

“Chan, don’t think too much,” Vernon shrugs, leaning over the table to pat his younger brother on the shoulder. “It’s not _really_ a formal meeting. It’s more for the people to know that the princes do come together and communicate. If nothing else, these meetings are for hyung to demonstrate that yes, he is good Crowned Prince.” 

“We’re all here to boost his public image,” Jihoon summarizes. 

“It works,” Jisoo shrugs. “So be ready to be in the Captiol at least once a year.” 

“Where else would he go?” Jeonghan asks. “Chan, who’s baby are you?” 

“ _Oh my goddesses,_ hyung, no,” Chan whines. “I refuse!” 

It didn’t matter whether Jeonghan was sitting in his brilliant white uniform with a gold sash, displaying his origins from the Manor District. It didn’t matter that the Yoon family was one of the Nine Families of Old. It _really_ didn’t matter that he was the second in line for the throne. No, at this moment, Chan threw away all his inhibitions, and this was that frustrating brother who _wouldn’t stop_ this stupid joke.

“Who’s baby are you?” Jeonghan coos. 

“ _No_ ,” Chan scowls. “I’m fourteen, not _four_!” 

“I’m sorry everyone!” Seungcheol interrupts, teleporting onto his chair with a small _pop!_ “The map was malfunctioning and so—” 

“See!” Junhui jumps up, pointing a triumphant finger at Jihoon. “You owe me money! Or pastries!” 

“I didn’t call your bet!” Jihoon protests. 

“Wait, I thought those pastries were for Chan!” Vernon interjects. “I want some then!” 

“Kids, Seungcheol is here so—” Jisoo tries to reign in the conversation, but he gives up as the volume steadily climbs. Standing up, the Third Prince does some strange hand waves—what was he doing? 

“Joshua’s lost his mind,” Jeonghan declares. “Tell the Church they need to find a new Head Priest-in-training.” 

“I—I’m sorry I’m late?” Seungcheol apologizes, looking down the table in shock. Jisoo was still doing his odd arm motions, and Jeonghan was already out of his chair, walking around the table to the Third Prince. A little further down, Junhui was insisting he won the best, Jihoon was insisting no bet occurred, and Vernon was trying to wheedle pastries. Chan, well, Chan was looking unperturbed back at his oldest brother. Seungcheol stares at his youngest brother with bewildered eyes— _what happened here_? 

Chan shrugs. It was just another day with his brothers. Only, they looked even more ridiculous than usual in their finery. This was who they were, and it made Chan pause. Huh, _these_ were their kingdoms most powerful.

Whelp.  

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally fail. I rewrote Jeonghan's chapter like 6 times and I scraped all of them. There's something so essential in Jeonghan's chapter that I just can't grasp well. UUUGH. So here a short with the princes being dumb and family. This was supposed to be the "yay! 100 kudos! double update!" but...Jeonghan wasn't cooperating so...now this is a "oop! uh, late update!"
> 
> ...okay guys, so...I wrote...I guess an incest segment LOL it's not essential to the story and if I were to rewrite the Lost Prince series, it definitely wouldn't be there, but it...it might explain some stuff (in terms of the relationship of certain princes) but I'M CONFLICTED??? I never meant for the brothers to have any...romantic feelings for each other but...it kind of made sense that way so do you guys want to read it? (It may or may not be the pairing ur expecting LOL) 
> 
> AAAANNNYYWAAAYYYSSS, thanks for reading as always and your comments always make me smile~~~ <3 <3 <3 <3 (100 kudos?!?! U GUYS ARE TOO KIND!!!!)


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeonghan was originally the Fourth Prince.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Princes: The Fourth Prince Yoon Jeonghan

Before Yoon Jeonghan was the Second Prince, he had been the Fourth Prince and many brothers away from the throne. Even at a young age, Jeonghan knew he wasn’t meant for the throne. Much to his mother’s dismay, he didn’t even secretly covet the title of Crowned Prince as some of his brothers did. After all, Jeonghan was pretty sure that if he showed any desire for the throne, his mother would try to make it happen.

After all, the Yoon family was one of the founding families of the Kingdom. His family had produced many Kings—many of them women, oh he had strong women in his family, and for that, they were respected beyond all others. So it wouldn’t have been too difficult if Jeonghan desired the crown. His mother and her family would have rallied the Court behind him. And when she asked the Court for something, very rarely did they not provide.

But Jeonghan had no such ambitions. Not at the age of five nor at the age of twenty-five. Yet, in the span of twenty years, he finds himself being pushed towards the throne without much choice in the matter.

At the age of five, Yoon Jeonghan was the only brother who spent more time at his mother’s estate than the palace. His mother didn’t want her only son trapped in those marble walls, and she was a powerful enough aristocrat to go against tradition. All she had to do was smile sweetly at the King and request to take Jeonghan home with her. The King could only nod quietly.

Even so, Jeonghan enjoyed the palace and all his brothers. It may have been because they were all the same age, but Jeonghan found himself very much attached to Seungcheol and Jisoo. They tagged along to each other’s lessons and took naps in dog piles and shared dreams together. Their mother’s joked that they would be the cornerstones of the Capitol—each brother seemed to fit one of the three Capitol districts to a tee. And for all his youth, Jeonghan believed that he would oversee the Manor District, Jisoo the Merchant District and Seungcheol the Market District.

What his older brothers did, well, Jeonghan didn’t quite think about them too much. While his oldest brothers were nice, Jeonghan never quite felt the same connection that Seungcheol had. There was a period of time Jeonghan wondered whether it was just the lack of time spent together—after all, Seungcheol never shut up about sneaking out at night with Aron-hyung or surfing the Southern Seas with Jonghyun-hyung.

“It’s probably because your always home,” Choi Minki, his cousin, shrugs. The older knight candidate watches Jeonghan work on his tutor’s homework with a lazy eye. “Whenever they’re free in the evenings, auntie has already shipped you back here.”

“I stay over sometimes,” Jeonghan grumbles. He really doesn’t like his cousin watching him work, but he had skipped out on a couple days of basic alphabets so Minki was here to supervise. Not that his older cousin was actually paying attention. In fact, Jeonghan’s pretty sure he could start reading his picture books and Minki would be none the wiser.

“Uh-huh,” Minki yawns. The older boy was on track for being a top knight candidate, and while the sun had barely started setting, the knight candidate’s eyes were drooping. Jeonghan could feel exactly how tired his cousin was—tired but happy. “Try hanging out with them instead of sticking with your typical trio. They need to get to know you too kid. Just because they’re your brothers doesn’t mean they can read your mind.”

“I never thought that,” Jeonghan pouts. He traces out the letters of his name with deliberate effort. It took him two tries, but his name finally looked more straight than crooked. “I’ll try.”

“There you go,” Minki nods. He leans back in his chair and nods off.

Jeonghan resists the urge to draw all over the other’s pretty face, but his older cousin did take care of him well. He played princes and knights with him whenever Jeonghan asked, and just the other week, Minki had convinced his mother that the Capitol’s annual commoner carnival was something all young princes should experience at least once. So he trusted his older cousin.

The next day, instead of making a beeline straight to Jisoo’s morning tutoring session, Jeonghan knocks hesitantly on the Crowned Prince’s private office. Even though Aron was a little shocked, he welcomes his baby brother in without any hesitancy. Jeonghan gets comfortable on the long couch and stares at his oldest brother expectantly.

“Cheol says you go on cool trips,” Jeonghan explains very seriously, and Aron laughs.

“I guess I do,” the Crowned Prince chuckles.

“Have you seen mermaids?” Jeonghan asks.

“Lots and lots and lots,” Aron informs with a solemn nod. “But did you know that your Jonghyun-hyung can speak their language?”

“I— _no_ he can’t,” Jeonghan denies. He loved merfolk and so he knows that their language could only be understood underwater. No one could hold their breath that long. Jeonghan was five, not _stupid_.

“He can,” Aron insists again with a solemn nod. “But we need proof right? He needs to show us.”

“Yeah!” Jeonghan agrees.

“I think we should go upstairs and ask Jonghyun to show us,” Aron declares, and Jeonghan gives a loud cheer. Giggling, Jeonghan lets his older brother levitate him with a simple spell and floats out of the office with Aron leading the way in their own mini parade.

As they accost the flustered second prince with a demand for merspeak, Jeonghan thinks Minki might be right. Maybe all he needed was more time with his brothers. But as he got older, Jeonghan realized it was actually the opposite. The more time he spent with his eldest brothers, the more distant he felt from them.

Jeonghan hadn’t been able to really explain the uneasiness he felt with his two eldest brothers. At the age of five, Jeonghan had yet to figure out the power that came as his birthright. But thinking back to it now, Jeonghan had always known his two eldest brothers would abandon the Court.

And on Seungcheol’s sixth birthday, Aron disappeared without a trace.

It wasn’t a very lavish affair. After all, Seungcheol had only been the young third son at the time. Even so, the palace staff stopped at nothing to give their little prince a taste of the Southern Territories he missed so dearly. The large courtyard had been covered in sand with magical waves lapping gently against the artificial beach. Jeonghan who had never seen a white sand beach quite like this had been ecstatic.

“Jisoo, Jisoo, Soo!” Jeonghan chants, kicking up sand with his bare feet. Their shoes had long been forgotten on the outer courtyard path. “It’s sand!”

“It’s pretty,” Jisoo says happily, grabbing a fistful of sand and letting it trickle through his fingers. “And warm.”

“This is like _my mom’s_ home!” Seungcheol declares proudly. He digs his heels into the sand and waits for the water to rise. “We have these that are _super_ big!”

“That’s called the ocean,” Jonghyun smiles.

“No!” the birthday boy scowls affronted. “The sand! This is tiny compared to my mom’s!”

“Ah, you mean the beach,” Jonghyun corrects himself with an apologetic smile. “This is tiny compared to Her Majesty’s beach.”

“Yeah!” Seungcheol nods happily, wriggling his toes as the water comes up to his ankles. "It’s nice and warm. Just like back with mom.”

“The palace staff worked really hard to make this. I think they really deserve a thank you,” Jonghyun suggests. “After all, they did it for your birthday.”

“Thank you!” Seungcheol yelled, waving at everyone frantically. He spins around and around until he eventually loses balance and falls into the wet sand face first. Jeonghan merely giggles as Jisoo runs over in concern. Even though he stayed face down in the sand, Seungcheol wasn’t hurt so Jeonghan takes his time to walk over.

Jeonghan remembers wondering how he knew whether his brother was hurt. He hadn’t asked nor had Seungcheol said anything. For all he knew, his brother could have gotten sand in his eye and _that_ hurts. But somehow he just knew Seungcheol was more embarrassed than anything. Huh.

But Jeonghan had been five and five year olds didn’t think that much when their brother shoves them into the water. So, Jeonghan shrieks Seungcheol’s name in betrayal as he tumbles into the shallow water. He doesn’t get a chance to exact his revenge as Jisoo bumps haphazardly into him. They eventually get Seungcheol into the artificially warm water and splashed at each other with no mercy.

“You—you!” Jeonghan sputters as Jisoo flicks a particularly large amount of water into his face. Even at his young age, his brother was good with flowing magic—water, air, light, healing, and Jeonghan supposes its something to be admired. At least, his mother seems to be quite envious. Jeonghan just thinks it’s a menace, especially right now.

“I didn’t do anything!” Jisoo hums with an innocent smile, but Jeonghan knows how smug the other boy was.

“Soo, you’re gonna pay!” Jeonghan declares, pointing an accusing finger at his brother. He was about to say something more when a wave of _something heavy_ hit him from behind. Jeonghan turns around expecting to see Seungcheol on his back or even something thrown at him, but there was nothing. Even though there was nothing, it weighed heavily on his shoulders almost like a threat.

“Hannie,” Jisoo calls with concern.

Jeonghan stays rooted to the spot, searching for the source. He doesn’t know where this heaviness came from but it was scary, and Jeonghan just wants it to go away. He thinks he’s felt it before like the unsettling feeling in his gut when his mother argued with the King. But this feeling threatened to crush him.

_Anger? Where?_ Jeonghan wonders, breathing slowly getting labored. But Jisoo was exuding cold concern, Seungcheol was a little way off in his own cloud of warm happiness, the palace staff walked around with varying degrees of _feeling_ , so where, where, where?

It was on complete accident that he locks eyes with Jonghyun as the elder walked back into the courtyard with an easy smile. And Jeonghan feels his heart speeding up in complete fear and his chest getting tighter. _There_. His second eldest brother was smiling, but he was _livid_. Not just agitated or upset, but _seething_. The elder was ready to _kill_.

He doesn’t realize he stopped breathing until Jonghyun’s expression morphed into shock. Suddenly the crushing anger was gone and uneasy surprise took its place, but the stress took its toll on the five year old. Jeonghan doesn’t even hear Jisoo yelling his name as he fell.

Jeonghan wakes up later that night to a worried Jisoo, a teary Seungcheol and a wary Jonghyun. He learns then that his eldest brother Aron vanished with his knight—renouncing his title and place in the line of succession. Jonghyun was now the Crowned Prince and Jeonghan the Third Prince. For some reason, it doesn’t surprise him.

What does shock him was when Jonghyun departs two years later. Jeonghan knew his second brother would leave eventually, but he didn’t expect it to be so soon or again on Seungcheol’s birthday. So he may or may not hate his eldest brothers for it.

Jeonghan was a light sleeper, so he had been quite adamant against crowding in their baby brother’s crib room for Seungcheol’s birthday sleepover. However, Jihoon had been surprisingly not cranky and Jisoo hadn’t smacked him in his sleep yet. Much to his own surprise, Jeonghan slept quite peacefully.

Until he heard it. Crying.

At first, Jeonghan thought it was just the bird in his dreams that was crying. It was a tiny little yellow ball of fluff that hiccupped in choked sobs. He tries to comfort the poor bird, but suddenly something alerts him it wasn’t the bird. It was from reality and he needed to wake up.

Blinking into the dimly lit room, Jeonghan sits up slowly to find the source of the cries. Jisoo was curled up against him, breathing deeply and evenly. Jihoon was in his crib, barely making a sound. Seungcheol, oh, Seungcheol was huddled next to the magical fireplace, smothering his sobs into a pillow. Much more awake, Jeonghan identifies the stabbing feelings as grief—by this time, he’s figured out his own birthright and it was both a blessing and a curse.

“Cheol?” Jeonghan croaks. He clears his throat and tries again. His brother huddles into his pillow tighter, stifling his sniffles and forcing his breathes to even out. Seungcheol was pretending to be asleep, but the tightness around the room made it apparent to Jeonghan how distraught the other was. So the Third Prince abandons his warm spot next to Jisoo and makes his way to the fireplace. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, go back to sleep,” Seungcheol mumbles into the pillow.

“Huh, if this is nothing, I’d hate to see when something happens,” Jeonghan sighs, leaning his cheek against Seungcheol’s shoulder. “Spill. Otherwise I’ll tell you.”

He feels Seungcheol tense and this makes Jeonghan smile. Oh, he’s slowly built a reputation of ‘mind reading’ as they called it. It was amusing when he was right, but he isn’t always. And with a brother he was so close to, he’d rather Seungcheol tell him than try to deduce it.

“You’re lucky I’m sleepy so I’m not gonna bother,” Jeonghan yawns. “Now spill.”

“You’ll find out tomorrow,” Seungcheol says with a small voice. He starts sniffling again, and Jeonghan cuddles into the other boy, rubbing his back soothingly. “Everyone will find out tomorrow.”

“But I want to know now,” Jeonghan whispers.

“Wait for tomorrow,” Seungcheol says. He still hasn’t looked up from his pillow, and Jeonghan is a little worried that his brother would suffocate in the soft cotton. “You’ll know tomorrow.”

“I want to know now,” Jeonghan huffs in exaggerated anger. “Don’t make me wake up Soo. He’ll get it out of you whether you want it or not.”

“Hah, he’s more likely to leave me alone when I ask,” Seungcheol chuckles. Jeonghan couldn’t argue with that. Jisoo would probably let Seungcheol cry until the other was ready to talk, but Jeonghan wasn’t like that. At least not with Seungcheol.

“Since you know, then just spill,” Jeonghan whines. He puts his arms around the huddled figure and pulls until they’re lying on the rug with a relatively wet pillow in between them. Seungcheol’s eyes were red and puffy, but his mood much lighter. Jeonghan no longer felt the stabbing grief and this made him a little bolder. “Tell me!”

Seungcheol doesn’t say anything but holds his hand in front of Jeonghan’s face. The other prince blinks in confusion. Did Seungcheol hurt his hand? Or was it— _oh_. 

“Hyung’s gone too,” Seungcheol whispered in quiet acceptance. “He’s gone.”

On Seungcheol’s ring, the royal insigna glowed a soft blue.

Everyone found out the next day. Their father confirms that Kim Jonghyun fled his responsibilities and the crown. Seungcheol is recognized as the Crowned Prince, the _First Prince_.

While it seemed like Seungcheol bounced right into his duties and role of the Crowned Prince, Jeonghan could feel the clinging sadness that followed his brother everywhere. In fact, there were several years that Seungcheol couldn’t bare to return to the Southern Territories—plagued by the memories of his eldest brothers. So Jeonghan may or may not _really_ hate his oldest brothers. But with each younger brother that came into their lives, Jeonghan felt Seungcheol breath easier and happier. The shadows slowly stopped digging into his brother’s soul, and Jeonghan thought they were finally going to be okay—no more crying at night, no more running from his mother’s hometown, no more wondering why, why, why, _why didn’t they tell me, Hannie, we were so close, why didn’t they say_ _anything?_

But Jeonghan should have known better. Soonyoung was the one who told him that Seungcheol was lost at sea, ambushed, betrayed. Just like that Jeonghan was at the foot of the throne.

From the son of a powerful aristocrat with no real way to the throne, a young Yoon Jeonghan finds himself second-in-line. From the brother of the to-be King, twenty-five year old Yoon Jeonghan finds himself the direct successor. And, at the age of twenty-seven, Jeonghan finds himself desperately clinging to the hope that Seungcheol is alive.

After all, his own insignia—a square cut into fours with an ‘x’—never changed.

\---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so I didn't try to go back and edit this too thoroughly because I just needed to get it out. I didn't edit this at all so forgive my terrible word choices, my grammar errors and like...all my spelling errors. Jeonghan was driving me crazy. Speaking of crazy, I had a crazy couple of weeks, going to conferences, losing all my keys, starting up a new internship, fixing up my car for days so I was without a car, driving 4 hour roundtrips twice a week and just...dying. LOL I'm just dying right now so sorry about being MIA. 
> 
> Can you tell I wanted to go over a lot in Jeonghan's chapters? I'll probably rewrite/redo this chapter later, but I'm a bit of a stubborn writer so if I don't get one idea out, I have a hard time writing other ones. SO HERE IT IS. BE OVERWHELMED WITH THE PRINCE CHILDREN. LOL
> 
> Anyways, hope you guys enjoy! I'm gonna be...more or less MIA until Thanksgiving 'cause my internship...is waaay more work intensive than I thought. So yeah. Imma work hard and I hope you guys enjoy! (I'm so dead and I'm blabbing and it's election day so like things have been crazy)


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mingyu is still getting used to his new life, and before he knew it, Minghao became a necessity.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Princes: The Knighting Ceremony 1

This was the first time Mingyu was watching a knighting ceremony up close. He was literally in the first row of the overhanging balcony, facing the door that his brother—oh boy, never in a _million years_ did he think the Eastern Prince was even _related_ to him—and his knight were supposed to walk out from.

The last time he watched a knighting ceremony was when Prince Jeonghan accepted his two brothers, Hong Jisoo and Lee Chan, as his knights. At the time, Mingyu had been doing odd jobs and one of them involved selling refreshments on the commoner balconies. He had barely room to move, much less see the Prince and his knights.

“Mingyu,” the Second Prince said. Mingyu turns instinctively towards the sound, and he’s almost blinded by the sheer affection in Jeonghan’s eyes. “If you want to get a closer look, you can move the chair closer to the railing. It’s quite pretty. The knighting ritual.”

“Your Hi—,” Mingyu begins. Jeonghan’s eyes flashed dangerously without his smile ever faltering, and Mingyu quickly covers his mouth of a cough. “I mean _hyung_.”

“Yes Mingyu?” Jeonghan smiles. 

“Uh, where’s the Third—I mean Jisoo-hyung,” Mingyu stammers. No matter how much disbelief he was about his royal blood, there was no going against Jeonghan. The man never looked angry or even frowned, but Mingyu feels like the Second Prince doesn’t need to do any of that to be one of the most intimidating people he’s ever met.

“At ease Mingyu, I’m not that scary,” Jeonghan chuckles. There it was again. The scariest thing about the Second Prince: he always seemed to know what was on Mingyu’s mind. “Jisoo is also a knight and they’re in charge of security for these kinds of event. Myungho is at his post too.”

At the mention of his knight, Mingyu feels himself perk up. It was ridiculous, but Minghao had become this familiar and comfortable person in the strangeness that was the royal family. The past five days had been crazy. From the simple son of an accountant, Mingyu found himself learning about a life that he never experienced and was now expected to live.

“Oh, if you’re bored hyung,” Vernon said, leaning over. “This is kind of fun.”

The younger prince tapped on Mingyu’s hand and looked expectantly with his hand stretched out. Mingyu hesitantly reached over and tried not to automatically flinch away when Vernon took his hand in a loose hold.

“Look over there,” Vernon instructed, pointing towards the opposite balcony roof. Mingyu follows the line of sight and sees Minghao leaning against the roof’s railing. The Lost Prince blinks hard. He could have sworn that Minghao had _not_ been there before. “I do this to Seungkwan all the time. May I?”

Mingyu looks back at his younger brother and nods cautiously.

“Keep your eyes on your knight,” Vernon says. Mingyu is more than confused but he looks over at Minghao anyways. Mingyu feels a sharp two taps on his pinky where his ring rested and Minghao jumps. Mingyu looks down at his ring—shining with a bright blue infinity sign.

“What did you—?” Mingyu begins to ask, but he’s interrupted unexpectedly.

“Mingyu is something wrong?” Minghao asks. Mingyu looks up to see Minghao eyebrows pinched together. He’s learned over the past couple of days that this expression was one of concern and, when he calls him _Mingyu_ instead of _my prince_ or _your highness_ , Minghao was confused by something he didn’t understand.

To be fair, Mingyu didn’t understand what Vernon did either.

“Mingyu-hyung just misses you,” Vernon informs with a cheeky smile.

Minghao’s pinched eyebrows went up with surprise. If it weren’t for the terrible heat, Mingyu would have suspected the knight to be blushing. Minghao’s expression quickly returned to his professional blankness, even if his cheeks were still tinged with pink.

“If there is nothing else you require of me, my prince,” Minghao says, clasping his hands behind his back stiffly. “I will return to my post.”

“Oh-okay,” Mingyu nods. He opens his mouth again, and Minghao pauses, waiting. The Lost Prince struggles with his words, but he finally settles for honesty. “I did miss you.”

Chewing on his lower lip, Minghao looks a little troubled. He glances at his post then back at Mingyu then at his post. There was a moment of hesitancy before he said carefully, “Once the ceremony starts, I’ll come back and be by your side.”

“Sounds good,” the Second Prince interrupts. Minghao turns to the older prince in a crisp salute. “It’ll be good for both of you to see what will be expected at _your_ knighting ceremony.”

“I thought since we’re already bound that we don’t—” Mingyu trails off uncertainly.

“It’s not out of necessity, true,” Jeonghan laughs. “It’s more for tradition and for the eyes of the Court. Well, and who doesn’t want an excuse to celebrate?”

“Please don’t make security work harder than they need to,” Jisoo sighs, entering the balcony with a tired smile. “Any kind of gathering of the royal family is terribly difficult to plan for.”

“Yet here we are,” Jeonghan says dryly, gesturing at the large crowd. “If the Court truly cared for our safety, the knighting ceremonies would _not_ be public affairs.”

“We have already determined what the Court’s priorities are,” Vernon snorted. Mingyu has never heard the younger prince sound so bitter, and it clashed quite a bit with the laidback vibe Vernon exuded. “Our safety isn’t even in the top ten—no, top _hundred_.”

“Now, now, let’s not be too hateful,” Jisoo comments. Mingyu blinks. It was also the first time he’s heard the Third Prince be sarcastic. “After all, the Court handled Sixlet’s assassination attempt with such care.”

“Hah, _Court_ and _care_ are two words should never be put together in once sentence unless there’s a _does not_ somewhere in there,” Jeonghan chuckles.

Mingyu allows the new information to sink in. His meeting with the Court gave him a gist of the attitude they had towards the princes. It was a little detached and almost hateful. At the time, Mingyu had thought it was due to his title of Lost Prince, but now he’s not too sure.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mingyu spots Minghao’s fist clench and then relax. Looking up at the knight, Mingyu smiles fondly at the thin line of Minghao’s lip—this meant he was reassessing and deciding his next course of action. As though he sensed Mingyu’s gaze, Minghao turns to him with a firm and determined expression.

 _Your safety is_ my _first priority_.

Mingyu doesn’t even need to hear his knight say it, and he just knows. So the prince smiles back.

 _I trust you_.

Minghao seems satisfied and turns to leave, but Jisoo stops him with a gentle hand on the other’s shoulder. 

“Stay,” Jisoo smiles. “This is probably the only chance you’ll get to see the knighting ceremony in full before you need to be in one.”

“But—”

“Stay and be wary of the public. After all, there’s more than one target on this balcony,” Jisoo insists. The older prince gives Minghao a very pointed look before smiling and patting the knight’s shoulder. “Ah, Junhui is also probably the only prince we’re wasting time planning any security detail at all.”

The Third Prince sweeps out of the balcony in the same grace he came in with. Minghao looks down at his prince with a nervous smile. Mingyu swallows. Oh, he’s well aware of the target painted on his back. There were many whispers in just the castle walls alone, and they weren’t friendly.

Mingyu takes a deep breath and tries to dispel the fear on exhale. It doesn’t work as well as he would have liked, but it did feel better that Minghao was here with him now. If nothing else, Mingyu trusted his knight. 

The Lost Prince didn’t even realize how easily that thought came to him.

\---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sup. We're finally getting into more story so I can FINALLY talk bout more of the plot! I will probably backtrack into the 5 days Mingyu spent acclimating to his royal title AFTER the knighting ceremony. I don't see the knighting ceremony to be longer than 3-4 chapters, but alas, I never know. 
> 
> Anyways, as the holidays get closer and I get a break from my internships, my goal is to AT LEAST finish the knighting ceremony before New Years! This is my New Years...pre-resolution? LOL does that even exist? Anyways. After we get through the knighting ceremony, I have LOTS of stuff to share. Unfortunately I can't publish some of the stuff I've already written until...we get through the knighting ceremony 'cause its got some important details and it'll set off gyuhao "quest" so to speak. 
> 
> Sorry for the short update! I hope everyone's been well! :))))


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mingyu gets lost in thought a lot.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Princes: The Knighting Ceremony 2

Kim Mingyu had lived most of his life in the kitchens. His mother had been an inventory manager of a busy restaurant in a sunny seaside port of the Southern Territories. She was a smart woman, very good with numbers, but hated going anywhere other than her tiny little office and their home.

She was always paranoid of something, terrified even, and so she kept Mingyu close. He understood. Even as a child, he did. He was all she had left—she refused to talk about his father or her family, and so he made up stories in his mind. Who his father could be, where they could be from, and who were they hiding from.

As a child born during the Western Wars with unknown family history, it was easy to pretend that maybe, _maybe_ he could be the Lost Prince.

“—and I’ll bring peace to everyone!”

His best friend nodded and patted him on the head encouragingly. To be fair, Jeon Wonwoo was his only friend.

Mingyu’s mother didn’t like her son leaving her side, and that meant while his mother worked in her tiny office, Mingyu helped out around the kitchen—out of sight from the general public. While he meets employees from around the world, he doesn’t have many friends, especially those around his age.

But he’s had Jeon Wonwoo since he could remember.

His best friend was the son of two very popular seafood chefs—ironically, his friend was allergic to the very foods that parents made. And it was at his parents’ restaurant that Mingyu’s mother worked at. So while he worked washing vegetables and cleaning seafood in the kitchen, Wonwoo sat next to him with a different book every day. This had been their routine since Mingyu could remember.

“I don’t think people from the Northern Territories are as scary as people like to say,” Mingyu rambles, shucking oysters open with practiced ease. Even at the age of eleven, Mingyu was proficient enough with knives to not pay attention to the task at hand. He hasn’t cut himself in years. “Remember that one waitress noona? She was from the North and like she was so nice and okay, she looked kind of mean when she didn’t smile but—”

Fourteen year old Wonwoo looks up from his book with a little surprise. Mingyu can’t read the title of the book because it was in a different language—Standard Northern, the Kingdom had renamed, but he knows he got his best friend’s attention.

“So when I return to the Court, I’m going to change that,” Mingyu smiles proudly. “This prejudice against the Northern people is ineq—uh, inequi—”

“Inequitable?” Wonwoo supplies.

“Yeah! Inequitable,” Mingyu nods. He’s pretty proud of himself. For someone who never went to school, he picks up Standard Capitol pretty well. Mingyu had heard Wonwoo using this word to debate with his parents about something, and so he cracked out the well-used dictionary Wonwoo had given him years ago.

“Has our Lost Prince been reading the newspaper lately?” Wonwoo teases. Looking over up from his book, Wonwoo smiles, teeth and all, and Mingyu almost loses his finger.

“I—I just think its wrong,” Mingyu mumbles, focusing on the task at hand.

“And it is,” Wonwoo agrees.

It’s silent for a while so Mingyu assumes the older boy was reading again. It actually startles him when he took a peek at Wonwoo only to see those dark eyes staring at him still. The younger boy hissed as the blade nicked the skin on his thumb.

“Careful,” Wonwoo cautions. The younger boy could only look down to hide his gleeful smile as Wonwoo reaches over to inspect his hand. “I can’t believe you’re doing the same amount of work as a paid kitchen help.”

“I don’t have anything else to do,” Mingyu shrugs. The thing about being so hidden away was that Mingyu had lots of love that could only go to two people—his mother and Wonwoo. His mother was a busy woman and Wonwoo attended school. So he gave it all to the kitchen, cleaning the counters until they were spotless and absorbing as many cooking techniques as he could from the various chefs.

“I wish your mom would allow you to go to school,” Wonwoo sighs. He seems satisfied with his inspection but holds onto Mingyu’s hand a little longer. “I think…I think you would enjoy school.”

“I don’t know, hyung,” Mingyu frowns. He slides the knife into the bucket of whole oysters so he could turn to face Wonwoo. He wanted to absorb all of Wonwoo’s attention, something that was becoming scarce lately. “You seem to have a whole lot of homework.”

“I just have more work than most of my peers,” Wonwoo laughs. Using his other hand, he ruffles Mingyu’s hair affectionately. “If I can’t physically defeat someone, I have to be able to use my wits to bring them down. That just the basics if I want to be a knight.”

Mingyu breathes in deeply but the air doesn’t seem to want to leave. It gets caught in his chest as his heart hammers away. This is why he held onto his little game of pretend for so long. This is why he keeps hoping that maybe, _maybe_ he could be the Lost Prince.

“If I can’t get even get into the candidate pool,” Wonwoo says solemnly. “How I could I be your knight?”

Mingyu is pretty sure his heart skipped a beat. He’s young, not _stupid_. He knows that he couldn’t be the Lost Prince. There were too many children in this area that had stories similar to his own—a single mother who had run away from home to build a new life for her and her child. Mingyu knows he’s not that special. His mind accepted his reality, but his heart couldn’t let go.

With the dirty hand the elder was still holding, Wonwoo pressed a playful kiss against the younger’s knuckles. Something they’ve always done in their game of pretend—Mingyu storming through the kitchen with a pot over his head as a crown and Wonwoo trailing behind with a rolling pin for a sword. But Mingyu wasn’t five anymore and he’s not _stupid_ —

“My prince,” Wonwoo smiles.

—just may be a little bit head over heels.

\---

Fidgeting in his seat, Mingyu was nervous to see Wonwoo again. Sure, it was going to be from the top of the balcony and it’s not like Wonwoo would be able to see him but _still_.

He didn’t know how he would react to seeing his childhood friend. Mingyu had thought that if he ever met his best friend again, he would run over to the older boy and embrace him. He had thought he would scream and shout and cry in joy. Jeon Wonwoo had been such a large part of his childhood that Mingyu thought his heart would have burst out of his chest.

If he were honest, Mingyu left the Southern Territories for the Capitol in hope that maybe, just _maybe_ he could meet his best friend again. After his mother died, Mingyu found it hard to stay in the little neighborhood where everyone looked at him with pitying eyes— _no father and now his mother’s dead, fell sick I heard, poor thing_. So instead of drowning in the gossip of housewives, Mingyu tossed his mother’s ashes into the sea as she requested and escaped to the Capitol with naïve hope that his best friend would be waiting there for him

But meeting up with Wonwoo had been harder than requesting an audience with the Crowned Prince himself. It wasn’t any fault of the elder. Wonwoo didn’t even know Mingyu had been in the Capitol for the past couple of years. The younger was ashamed to admit that he had been too scared to go see his friend. Wonwoo had left the Southern Territories for at least four years and would he even remember Mingyu, their family’s charity case? Funny how things turned out. Mingyu was the Lost Prince. Too bad Wonwoo couldn’t have been—

“My prince.”

Hearing his knight’s gentle call, Mingyu blinks out of his revere and his heart tugs a little painfully. He looked up at Minghao in guilt, and the other looked down at him impassively.

“What did you do?” Minghao asks with an accusatory tone.

“Nothing?” Mingyu says feebly. Immediately his head droops a little and turns away from his knight.

“That’s very convincing,” Minghao mutters, too quiet for the Second Prince to hear but crystal clear for Mingyu’s ears.

“Don’t give me that face,” Mingyu mumbles. “I’m just tired.”

“You’re not even looking to see what kind of face I have,” Minghao informs him.

“I just know okay?” Mingyu sighs. “You always just have _that_ face.”

“Hm, just yesterday you insisted that you didn’t know me at all,” Minghao says. “Yet today, you seem to know me very well.”

“Can you just—” Mingyu huffs, turning to face his knight. Much to Mingyu's surprise, Minghao was gazing at him with a mix of amusement and fondness. At Mingyu’s stunned silence, Minghao raises his eyebrows in question before scrunching his face in an exaggerated frown— _just for you_.

Once again, Mingyu felt his chest tighten. How selfish to have been thinking about a childhood hope while his _actual_ knight was right here. He’s not sure what kind of expression he had, but Minghao shifts towards Mingyu in quiet reassurance and comfort. Turning around to face the ceremony stage, Mingyu leans back into his chair and let’s his shoulder bump against Minghao’s arm.

“Myungho, I—” Mingyu starts to say, but a loud gong interrupts him. Suddenly, the rowdy crowd went unnaturally silent.

“It’s _finally_ starting,” Vernon stage whispers. The younger prince taps his fingers against the balcony railing with each deafening beat. Vernon turns to Mingyu with an excited smile. “Hyung, you _gotta_ watch this." 

Mingyu leans forward toward the railing and peers at the stage. The stage was built from the Capitol’s signature white marble with the only blemish being the large royal crest carved deep into the stone. Liquid light swirled in the carved insignia giving a soft glow in comparison to the harsh reflection of the sun.

With every loud beat of the brass gong, the royal crest glowed a little brighter and brighter and _brighter._ Mingyu blinks rapidly as the liquid light raises from the carved marble and swirls in midair, keeping its original shape. It was strangely calming to watch the magical light. The feeling was almost like when the infinity sign on his ring shined—warm, familiar and intimate.  Just as suddenly as the loud percussions started, they stopped. The royal crest falls in a large splash against the marble stage. Some seeped back into the carvings while some trickled across the stage.

Mingyu feels Minghao lean forward behind him. He wasn’t the only one holding his breath, and this made Mingyu smile. It was good to know he wasn’t the only one on this balcony seeing everything for the first time. Minghao was just as much of a stranger to the Capitol as he was, and while his knight probably wasn’t, Mingyu was thankful. He wouldn’t know what to do if he didn’t have someone to learn with.

Lost in thought, Mingyu didn’t notice the liquid traveling to the two doors facing each other. By the time Mingyu was paying attention to the ceremony again, the light stamped the royal crest on the door facing the balcony—the door the new knight-to-be would walk out from. 

Mingyu inhales. This would be the first time in _years_ that he’s seen Wonwoo. He doesn’t know whether the elder still had those kind eyes or cut his hair the same or smiled shyly in public. He doesn’t know whether Wonwoo was still the same Wonwoo he knew. The Lost Prince doesn’t know if he’s ready to find out, but the doors are opening.

Mingyu exhales, and the doors explode.

"Won-!"

\---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE'RE ALMOST THERE. Just a lil flashback to Mingyu's childhood. Yeaaah, to those of you who remembered my lil bit of Meanie/Junhao mention. Yeah, here's the Meanie portion of it. Yeaaaah, not super original I know but it'll be important late haha. As usual. Anyways. What's gonna happen to Wonu?!?!? Stay tune for the next short chp LOL (i'm so sorry they're short)
> 
> The knighting ceremony maybe be 5 parts in total haha. Imma try to get them out in the next week and a half. BEFORE NEW YEARS, WE GOTTA GET PAST THIS HUMP Lol. But first, I'm doing applications so...may not hear from me again until after the 25th.
> 
> Have a good holiday to those who celebrate! ^^


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monsters aren't just in nightmares. And sometimes, his brothers are even scarier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: violence, *spoiler???* basically something is killed gruesomely, sorry if ur squeamish!!!

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Princes: The Knighting Ceremony 3

“Won—!” Mingyu chokes as the dust and smoke blankets the stage. He grabs the railing to lean forward, but Minghao pulls him back by the collar of his jacket. 

“ _Mingyu, no_ ,” Minghao hisses into his ear. The Lost Prince takes no heed and tries to reach for the railings again. Minghao swings an arm around the other’s neck in a chokehold and refuses to let go. 

“But Wonwoo-hyung!” Mingyu gasps, struggling against his knight. He couldn’t see much and all he could hear were people screaming, rocks crumbling and Minghao’s harsh breath against his neck. It was terrifying and Wonwoo could be _dead_ — 

Just as unexpected as the first explosion came, a second one went off. This time, however, a strong gust of wind pushes all of the smoke away. Mingyu yelps as it blows dust into his eyes and he doesn’t fight it when Minghao turns him around to avoid the rest of the impact. 

“ _I will kill you_.” 

Even though the wind was still clearing out the stage, it felt as though the air stopped moving in Mingyu’s lungs. Blinking away the tears, the Lost Prince turns back to towards the stage. Vernon stands at the railing in pure shock, not a single strand of hair out of place or not a speck of dust on his ceremonial jacket.   

“Dark magic,” Vernon whispers, eyes wide and face pale. Mingyu follows the younger prince’s line of sight. 

The Fourth Prince stood tall with a dark blade pointed at a monstrous looking human being. It must have been human at some point but the open blisters all over its skin and bulging red eyes suggested something gone wrong. Horribly wrong. It smiles a mockery of happiness. 

“You’re fast,” it laughs. “We expected no less from the Eastern Prince.” 

“You’ve made a grave mistake,” Junhui growls. His face was twisted in ugly rage. Mingyu flinches, so this was Wen Junhui, the Prince of War and Bloodshed. “No one has ever walked away from this blade alive, and neither will you.” 

“Are you sure about that?” it asks in fake concern. “You may want to get your head checked.” 

It was only then that Mingyu noticed the blood trickling down the East Prince’s neck. It bleeds black into the maroon fabric. The thing crackles in victory. 

Minghao gasps loudly, “没有人伤害过四公子.” _No one’s ever hurt the Fourth Prince before._  

“You severely underestimate me if you think this little wound will change anything,” the Fourth Prince smirks, his arm steady and unwavering. 

“We wouldn’t dare underestimate your highness,” it gasps and salutes the prince exaggeratedly. “But, this does tell us you do have a weakness. Right, Jeon Wonwoo-ssi?” 

Mingy flushes. In his shock, he forgot about his childhood friend. But there Wonwoo was, behind his prince still standing with his arms up to defend a blow. The knight seemed to be pulled out of his daze with the mention of his name. 

“My prince,” Wonwoo whispers in shame. He looks down to the ground, trembling. “I’m sorry.” 

“We _knew_ we couldn’t get to you directly, but oh, you have a soft spot for your knight like all you stupid royals!” it shrieks joyfully. It holds up an inhuman limb with wet blood on the ends of the claws. Junhui frowns and his sword hand finally shakes. “I hope you enjoy organ failure. There’s no antidote to my poison.” 

“I’m so so _so_ sorry, my prince,” Wonwoo chants. It tears Mingyu apart to see his friend look so terrified, but he can’t imagine being down there with that blistering demon. It was like that thing walked out of Mingyu's worst nightmares. The Lost Prince couldn’t see the older man’s eyes, but he hazards a guess that there were tears. “I’m sorry.” 

“One territory down! This was too easy. You royals are so—” 

“Is it ready?” Junhui interrupts. It looks at the Fourth Prince with confusion, but Junhui wasn’t addressing him. Not that it could make a response. Mingyu merely blinked and suddenly it was impaled on pillars of light. A ring of light twinkles around the monster. A spell, when? 

“Of course, your highness,” Wonwoo replies. The knight looks up with an impassive expression, nothing of the previous emotions evident on his face. 

“You’re faster than I thought,” Junhui smiles. His voice was proud and his sword stops shaking immediately. Embarrassed, Mingyu finally realizes it had been a ploy. 

"Well, they're going to a much more terrifying pair than I thought," Jeonghan sighs, but Mingyu could hear the older man smiling.

“You will still die!” it gasps. The light fades and the monster falls onto the marble in a splatter of gray liquid—blood? 

“Will I?” Junhui asks lightly. Loosely holding his black blade, the Fourth Prince walks forward and steps onto its claw. Slowly, the prince twists his foot and Mingyu shudders at the cracks that echoed throughout the stadium. His eyes were still trained on his brother and the elder's depraved smile. He had been wrong, _this_ was the Prince of War and Bloodshed. “What are you? _Tenth_ class? Will I really die from the poison of such a low-quality core?”   

“ _You, you have one_ —” 

“黑魔术还有其他名字呢,” Junhui whispers. Mingyu frowns. He can’t understand it but whatever the prince said made Minghao choke audibly. Turning to his own knight, Mingyu doesn’t recall ever seeing the Easterner look so pale and terrified. 

And in the moment, he looked away Junhui swung his sword. The Lost Prince doesn’t see it, but he hears the tear of flesh and the sharp swing of the blade. It started screaming and unexplainable crackles and pops echoed off the marble. Mingyu tries to turn back to the stage again, but Minghao blocks his sight with a firm hand. 

“Don’t look,” Minghao demands and he wrestles Mingyu onto the floor, obscuring his vision the entire time. “ _Kim Mingyu_ , _don’t look_.” 

But Mingyu was nothing if not stubborn. In a sudden burst of strength, he forces off his knight’s hand and through the spaces of the balcony railing, he _sees_. And Mingyu finally understands why Minghao didn’t want him to witness it. 

 _Something_ was devouring the monstrous human as it let out bloodcurdling wails. It pleaded and begged and tried to scratch at the Fourth Prince’s feet, but Junhui stood there emotionlessly, watching. This was the first time Mingyu noticed something different. Junhui’s eyes were light purple, not the chocolate brown he remembers. 

“A dark core,” Vernon whispers with a shaky breath, and it almost sounds like a sob. “Jun-hyung has a dark core.” 

“阎罗王的礼物: 妖灵,” Minghao murmurs in fearful reverence. _The gift from the King of Hell: Demon soul_. 

\---

 _Dark magic has other names_.

\---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SLOWLY SLOWLY, my god, imma do my best to finish the knighting ceremony in the next...two days LOL
> 
> Anyways, so here we have more tidbits. Haha, as though Wonwoo would freeze up, this kid was pretty much the top knight candidate in the Court's favor for YEARS (other than in name 'cause he gave that up voluntarily). Silly Mingyu, u were the only royal who couldn't see through it. Now that I'm super proud...of my own fictional take on Wonwoo, LOL, we're finally getting places! The dark core! ^^ If you couldn't guess, the ending sentence was what Junhui said that I chose deliberately not to translate at the time. (if u can read Chinese, well, the effect is lost on you...JKJKJK THERE WAS NO EFFECT, I'M JUST RAMBLING)
> 
> Anyways, I'm starving LOl so Imma go eat and thanks for reading! Hopefully I'll update more before New Years (this new years pre-resolution...sigh) but if not, have a great New Years!!!


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fourth Prince reminisces and looks forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: violence, *spoiler???* basically something is killed gruesomely, sorry if ur squeamish!!!

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Princes: The Knighting Ceremony 4

Wen Junhui was not born with a dark core. 

Only true Eastern royals had a core from birth, and the Wen family was the farthest from royalty. They were a family of great warriors and historical generals. They _served_ royalty. Yet, the arrival of a foreign king changed it all. 

No one expected the Invader King to fall in love with an unknown female solider nor did they expect him to follow Eastern traditions in pursuing her hand—kneeling at her family shrine and singing courting songs in the Eastern tongue. That was probably what touched the heart of his jaded mother. No one had heard his mother sing since she lost her first husband to false accusations of treason.   

From soldiers, the Wen family became royals. The transition was anything but smooth. Growing up, Junhui remembers his own aunts and uncles bursting into the dining halls and announcing another commoner uprising. They would look at the young child nervously, but even at the age of six, Junhui knew that meant the death other another royal family. 

From the beginning of time, there had been lots of resentment towards the royal families, but no one dared to harm them. They were the envoys of Hell and received the protection in the form of their own demons. When the Invader King came, he promised a power greater than the dark core. He promised he could suppress dark magic, cancel dark energy and render the royals powerless. 

No one knew how he did it, but the Invader King delivered. He destroyed the strongest  _Ming_ state and burned their palace to the ground, scattering the royals into the winds. That year began the end of the age of warring states. 

His father instigated the death of hundreds—purely because of blood relations no matter how faint, and signed their demise with Junhui’s birth. The Fourth Prince would be the new ruler of the Eastern Territories. There would be no more warring states. There would be one territory and the Capitol will rule it from afar. 

Many tribes embraced it. This meant there would be no more need for royal families and their demonic powers. And with that, the witch hunts for the royal families began.

Wen Junhui was not born with a dark core, but he was born with blood on his hands. 

“Everyone is. We’re all born with our mother’s blood on our hands.” 

Ten-year-old Junhui cracks a smile. He could always count on his young friend to cheer him up in the strangest way possible. 

He met his friend by chance. In an act of rebellion, the young prince fled the fortress walls. Not that it really mattered. He was the half-blood prince that everyone in the Eastern Territories could recognize. Junhui couldn’t escape his title or his responsibilities, but he tried. 

Running down a mostly abandoned road, Junhui had seen a group of road bandits surrounding a young red-head child—an unfortunately common sight to see. Seething in righteous rage, Junhui had been ready to unleash hell on those bandits. He had only seen nine and a half harvests, but even then, the prince had been strong both physically and magically. But Junhui had barely said the first syllable of his incantation when the young child lashed out. 

The wave of energy— _dark energy_ , Junhui recognized in shock—had blown the bandits off the road and even caused Junhui to take a couple steps back. The child had looked up and Junhui recognized the blood red eyes. A dark core. 

“My host doesn’t like to hurt people,” the child had said wryly. “But if you’re here to hurt him, I’ll have to dispose of you.” 

“I—I have no intentions of hurting your host,” Junhui stammered. He wracked his brain for demon etiquette but came up blank. Junhui hadn’t been the most attentive student when it came to his book studies, and he flushed in embarrassment. “How old are you?” 

“Six,” the child had replied. “You?” 

“Nine,” Junhui had responded. He hadn’t known how to really conduct small talk at the age of nine. So instead of asking for the other’s name or even inquiring what the child had been doing out on the road alone, Junhui had blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Can you teach me what you did?” 

And that’s how he met Xu Minghao. 

“ _Ge_ , are you listening to me?”

Ten-year-old Junhui shakes off the memories and returns his attention to the red eyed boy. The younger pouts visible. 

“Woah, I sit here, listen to your woes, comfort you and teach you dark magic yet the all mighty Fourth Prince ignores me,” the seven-year-old huffs, crossing his arms in a childish display of annoyance. 

“Sorry, Haohao,” Junhui smiles, reaching over to ruffle the other’s bright red hair. “I was just thinking about how cute you were when we first met.” 

“My host and I _grew_ okay?” the younger growls, swatting away the other’s hand. “I’ll be taller than you one day.” 

“Sure,” Junhui allows. “Didn’t you say Minghao had writing lessons to go to soon?” 

“Oh, has it gotten that late?” the red head blinks owlishly. He looks at Junhui with expectant eyes. “Well, go on. Get out of here before my host sees you.” 

“I’m leaving, I’m leaving,” Junhui nods. He makes a quick motion of teleportation and whisks himself away from the clearing. But he doesn’t go too far. Just hidden in a nearby tree, Junhui holds his breath and waits. 

The red head looks around cautiously before laying down on the ground. The dark energy fades, and the red bleeds out of the other’s hair replaced with a dark brown. Junhui waits a moment more. The now-brown haired boy sits up suddenly and looks around in sleepy confusion. 

“What time—oh _no_ , _Yeye_ is going to _kill_ me!” Xu Minghao yelps. He scrambles to his feet and makes a run in the direction of the village. Junhui exhales gently and smiles. He watches the younger boy disappear into the trees with amusement. 

“下回再见，小王子.” _See you next time, little prince._  

He supposes he was lying a little. Wen Junhui has never met Xu Minghao, but he owes his greatest debt to the younger boy. 

\--- 

“文家并不是原本的皇家之一，他怎么会有妖灵呢?” Minghao exclaims from the balcony. _The Wen family wasn’t one of the original royal families. How does he have a demon soul?_  

Even with the low class dark influenced clawing at his feet, Junhui heard the younger knight’s words. He smiles, wouldn’t Haohao like to know? The dark influenced screeches loudly, and Junhui figures he’s played with the poor thing enough. Half of the reason he was doing this was spurred on by rage—how _dare_ they try to attack his knight?—and the other half was for show. He knows whoever sent this dark influenced was watching. The Fourth Prince was sending a message back, and he hopes it was well received. 

“ _Good bye_ ,” Junhui salutes in the Western tongue. The dark influenced eyes widened in shock. Oh, Wen Junhui wasn’t stupid. He knew _exactly_ who sent this thing, and he supposed it was a good thing they didn’t try to attack Vernon again. He wouldn’t have stopped at just a grotesque show if they tried to harm his baby brother again. “ _Hope Hell’s nice this time of year_.” 

There was no finesse in how Junhui kills the thing. It was a clean down stroke that severed its head. He doesn’t even flinch at the blood splatter. The Fourth Prince sighs sadly. He was going to get an earful from Jeonghan, his ceremonial outfit was dirty and they hadn’t even finished the knighting ceremony yet. Looking down to survey the damage, Junhui blinks in surprise. Not a speck of gray blood anywhere. 

Junhuicatches the tail ends of a spell fizzing out and turns to his knight with a wide smile. Damn, he made the right choice. 

“Are you hurt, my prince?” the knight inquires. His expression hadn’t changed a bit since they stopped their little ploy. 

“Nothing Jisoo-hyung can’t fix,” Junhui responds. The Fourth Prince knows he must look like quite a character, standing in a pool of gray blood and smiling widely with blood dripping from his forehead. But he has long stopped caring about his image. “What about you?” 

“I’m fine, your highness,” Wonwoo nods. 

“So, now that the interruption is gone,” Junhui laughs. “Let’s proceed?” 

“Of course,” the knight agrees. He turns to walk onto the stage, but Junhui stops him a quick _ah, just come here_. “My prince?” 

“I’ve never been too much of a stickler to the rules,” Junhui explains with a shrug. “And it’s not like anyone in the Court is still hanging around to watch after _that_ fiasco. So let’s just do this.” 

“I—yes, your highness,” Wonwoo nods slowly. The prince sees the hesitation and the quick look towards the balcony, but Junhui doubts the Second Prince really cares. The elder would have made himself known if he really wanted to. So Junhui reaches out to pull his knight towards him. 

“Let’s begin,” the Fourth Prince smiles. 

“I, Jeon Wonwoo, swear my life to Prince Wen Junhui of the Eastern Territories,” the knight begins without further prompting. “If my prince would take me, I wish to serve, protect and stand by my prince until he needs my services no more.” 

“From the honorable houses of Kings and of the East, I take Jeon Wonwoo to be my knight,” Junhui responds. “As long as you serve, protect and stand by me, I hold you in my soul and no further than my heart. May your service end when my life does.” 

This was when Junhui should have held out his hand and when Wonwoo got on one knee, but the Fourth Prince merely gazes at his knight with a contemplating look. 

“Your highness?” Wonwoo questions. 

“Have you thought about my question, Jeon Wonwoo-ssi?” Junhui asks. 

_What are_ you _getting out of this?_  

The knight was silent, and Junhui was about to take pity on the other when Wonwoo mets his eyes with a resolve the prince wasn’t expecting. 

“I guess I’ll have to find out, but before then,” Wonwoo declares. He smiles with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes and takes a step forward, closing the gap between them. Now, Junhui was staring at him wide eyed and a little cross eyed. “Let’s just get comfortable, shall we?” 

Junhui couldn’t fight off the strange feeling of déjà vu—when was it that, oh, _you’re going to be my knight in less than an hour. let’s just get comfortable, shall we? the prince says, smiling with teeth._

Wonwoo was the first to reach for Junhui’s hand and bring the other’s ring to his lips. The knight kisses the ring, eye level with the Fourth Prince. An unheard of break from tradition, but the royal crest shimmers beneath their feet without change. 

“Even beyond death, I will swear to my prince and then my kingdom,” Wonwoo vows. The prince stares blankly at his knight, and he probably would have continued if the Third Prince hadn’t sent a gust of wind in warning.   

“To my knight in mind and body,” Junhui amends quickly, shoving a matching ring into Wonwoo’s hand. The Fourth Prince wasn’t paying attention to the shining seal or the appearance of his symbol on the metal ring or his new knight saluting him. No, he was still thinking of Wonwoo’s mischievous smile and unexpected boldness.

Jeon Wonwoo was _definitely_ a keeper.

\---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...I'm sorry LOL I finally finished with applications on New Years, so...responsibilities whisked me away into real life.
> 
> Here we got our Junhao~ ^^ I was thinking about writing this section later, but eh...so here we go! More Eastern Territory conflict! More on dark energy/magic! We got a Dark!Junhui and Dark!Hao~ More will come to light on all of this, but for now, this is what i have for ya.
> 
> Anyways, Junhui making heart eyes at Wonwoo hahaha, whipped from day one. We've got ONE MORE PART in which GASP we'll get Jisoo's POV (for the first time i think, Josh, I haven't forgotten you!) And then Imma backtrack. I think you'll all enjoy the 5 days Mingyu had in the palace before the knighting ceremony (more Gyuhao hints!) 
> 
> Alrightie, hope everyone had a great start of the New Year! ^^ Stay healthy and be happy!


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hong Jisoo had a lot to think about.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Princes: The Knighting Ceremony 5

When the first explosion went off, Hong Jisoo immediately went to Jeonghan’s side. The Second Prince was sitting in a quiet air pocket that split away all the smoke and dust before it could reach the prince. Stepping into the calm air, Jisoo recognizes the magic as his own—an enchanted pendant he had given Jeonghan on the other’s fifteenth birthday. Even with the dire situation, the Third Prince was a little touched that his brother still wore a charm so old. 

“Is this—?” Jisoo doesn’t even get to finish his sentence before the other interrupts him. 

“No, it’s not,” Jeonghan assures. “If it were Jihoon, believe me, none of us would still be alive.” 

“But it feels just like—no, you’re right,” Jisoo sighs. The Third Prince has only watched his younger brother’s experiments once. A new source of clean energy but very unpredictable, Jihoon had said. It was under Jihoon’s direct control and supervision—no one else in the Kingdom could harvest or utilize the energy without the Fifth Prince’s permission. Yet, he felt hints of that particular magical signature during the explosion. Jisoo clenches his fists and trusts. “Hannie, are you alright?” 

“I’m fine,” the Second Prince shrugs, keeping his eyes on the stage. Even though Jeonghan was forcing a façade of nonchalance, he could see the other’s uneasiness. Jisoo smiles. No one ever worries about Junhui like Jeonghan does. “See if we need to evacuate the Court.” 

“How about we get rid of all this debris first?” Jisoo offers. He mutters something quietly under his breath, and a second explosion goes off, clearing away all the smoke. By the time Mingyu got back on his feet, Jisoo was no longer on the royal balcony. 

“If I could have everyone evacuate—” Jisoo stops himself short. There was no one there. The Court viewing balcony just below the Royal’s balcony was empty, just chairs and refreshment stool. They didn’t even leave behind a stray thread. 

The Third Prince frowns. There had barely been twenty seconds between the first and second explosions. To have been met with a dusty but empty seating area meant the Court had turn tails and fled immediately after the first explosion. Jisoo had some choice words for those cowards, but he didn’t think the goddesses would approve of his malicious language so he bites them back. 

He turns back to the stage and watches the scene unfold with an apprehensive eye. Jisoo was not worried about Junhui. The only two people who ever worried about Junhui the solider were Seungcheol and Jeonghan. But rather, _what_ this attack meant. 

Jisoo could remember turbulent times growing up, but none like this. No one has ever made direct attacks in the Capitol when their father had been alive. Back then, his father’s ruthless reputation and their highly militarized fortress made the Capitol a tough place to do anything. And the Crowned Prince Choi Seungcheol had worked hard to change that culture. Now, the palace was less of a military base and more of a government office. The Capitol was no longer the prison of fear but rather a bustling center for art and commerce.  

Yet this attack. Who was it? What was it for? And why the Fourth Prince—the strongest and most merciless? 

A dark influenced, Jisoo notes. A bastardization of the old Eastern royalty, but there was something distinctly Western about the thing’s speech. The terrorists? Jisoo frowns. Their goal had always been to destroy the royal family and plunge the territories back into the anarchy they had once been in. But why Prince Wen Junhui? 

The Third Prince observes the exchange in deep thought, tightening the winds around the large stadium to contain any damage. If it were the terrorists, they would have done better to go for Mingyu or even Vernon again. There was no way they could bring Junhui down in any capacity. If they were trying to make a statement, it would be meaningless. Both to the royal family who would scoff at their stupidity and to the public who would just see them being annihilated by the royal family. 

So what was the purpose? Jisoo ponders, looking down at his ring. It gave no answers. 

His wind picks up nervously at the presence of dark magic. Jisoo looks towards the stage, and his younger brother was pulling from his dark core. _Again_. The Third Prince frowns. While he was very proud of Junhui for being a little Eastern magic prodigy, Jisoo wasn’t fond of drawing energy from demons. No one can control demons—presumably the Eastern royals could, but Junhui wasn’t one. 

_Don’t worry hyung. I’ve got a great teacher_ , Junhui reassured him years and years ago. They had been much younger, and Jisoo may or may not have shrieked at his younger brother’s sluggish gray blood and light purple irises. _I already promised Seungcheol-hyung that I’d use it only if necessary! I won’t abuse it, I promise!_  

Junhui was trying to send the attackers a message— _don’t get too haughty because I have the same power if not stronger_ , and Jisoo gets it. It doesn’t mean he sees it as necessary. Sighing, Jisoo leans against the railing and watches. With the situation controlled, he allows his winds to travel further and scope out the damage. 

_Hee hee hee_. 

Jisoo jumps into attention. It was faint, but there was another dark influenced. The air tenses, searching and feeling and listening. Closing his eyes, Jisoo follows the wind through alleyways, across rooftops and into tunnels. Where? 

_—ern territory shall fall_ , it sings inside the hidden spaces of a large clock tower in the Market District. Sensing it had been found, it flees. The winds give chase, but it was gone. Somewhere physical elements couldn’t follow. 

Jisoo opens his eyes and sees his brother staring blankly at his knight. Their warrior can face armies and demons without problem but apparently can’t remember proper procedure for the life of him. Shaking his head, Jisoo flicks a gust of wind in warning. Junhui flinches, quickly saying his vows back and shoving the ring into his knight’s hand. 

Returning to the royal balcony, Jisoo gives Vernon a concerned look. The young prince’s face was ashen and eyes wide. 

“ _Are you alright Sixlet_?” the Third Prince asks in the Western tongue. 

“ _Uh—yeah, I’m—I’m just shocked_ ,” Vernon responds quickly. Seeing the Lost Prince’s troubled expression, the Sixth Prince switches over to Standard Capitol. “I’m okay. Really, I just didn’t expect to see another one of those things. Especially when the last one, you know, tried to kill me.” 

Jisoo smiles sadly. This was the first-time Vernon spoke of the assassination attempt on his own volition. 

“Prince Joshua,” Jeonghan addresses. Jisoo turns to his brother in confusion. The only time Jeonghan _ever_ calls him that was—oh. The Second Prince held a very plain piece of parchment but the watermark of the paper was that of the Court. It was a Court order. For him. “Report to the Judgement Room for a security review.” 

Jisoo groans in frustration. Great. Just great. 

\--- 

_Is Prince Lee Jihoon involved?_  

“No,” Joshua answers firmly. “There’s no evidence that the explosion was caused by the same material as the one the Fifth Prince is investigating.” 

_What else could it be then? There are not many things with the same magical wavelength._  

“I do not know,” the Third Prince answers truthfully. “I am not practiced in alchemy or such arts, but I can guarantee that Lee Jihoon has nothing to gain from causing such a minor disruption.” 

_Are the Fourth and Fifth Prince not at war? He wasn’t here for the knighting ceremony._  

“If the Fifth Prince wanted to harm his brother,” Joshua says. “Wen Junhui would be dead. This flashy and ineffective method is not like Jihoon.” 

_We would like to take your word for it. As you know, we trust you much more than your brothers. But this situation is delicate. Whoever it was attacked us at the heart of the Kingdom—a difficult place to infiltrate if not already an insider. We need to know for sure it wasn’t Prince Lee Jihoon._  

“And how would you like me to confirm it?” the prince asks. He smiles forcefully. He was the good link between his brothers and the Court. No matter how Jisoo wanted to retaliate against the Court, his good favor with them was crucial. “The Fifth Prince hasn’t met with anyone for months now. We’ve tried and failed to establish connection beyond his knight Lee Seokmin.”

_Kim Mingyu has yet to meet all his brothers._  

“I—I’m not sure what—where we are going with this,” Joshua stutters. 

_While he has royal blood, he has yet to prove his worth as a prince. Let this be his first task: Bring the Fifth Prince, Lee Jihoon, to the Capitol._  

“Going to the Northern Territories as a first task is—”

_These orders come from the Court and only the King may dispute it._

“I will let him know,” Jisoo says through gritted teeth. And this was why Jeonghan needed to ascend the throne. They needed a King.

\---

The end or continue? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo, finally done with the Knighting Ceremony! Imma backpedal into Mingyu's couple of days in the palace before the Knighting just to establish some character relationship~ 
> 
> Yeaaaah, hopefully things will get more interesting as we go on ^^ More plot! altho we're going to go back into NO plot (okay a little bit of plot), but I think you guys will enjoy it!
> 
> Thanks for reading and I hope everyone had a great start to their new year!


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Capitol isn't as safe as they would have liked it to be, but it's okay. After all, it was an older brother's responsibility to keep the younger ones safe.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

Seven Princes: The Ones That Came Before

“ _Are you fucking kidding me_?” Jonghyung, the Second Prince, snarls, slamming his fists against the other’s lacquered table. 

“I wish I could say I was,” Aron, the Crowned Prince, replies coolly. He eyes the cracks on his desk with a wary eye. He enchanted the top to prevent any scratches, but Aron supposes his younger brother’s fists were much more powerful than any accidental scrape he managed over the years. Still Aron cast a pretty decent protection charm. Ah, how the young have grown. 

“And you’re just going to accept it?” Jonghyun asks, leaning forward. His fists crack the surface a little more. Aron steps back from his desk just in case the magic doesn’t hold up. The Crowned Prince—no, the previous Crowned Prince shrugs. “ _Hyung_.” 

“What do you want me to say?” Aron sighs. He meets Jonghyun’s gaze firmly. “That I can’t control the Court? That they’re holding our younger brother’s lives over my head? That Seungcheol just turned six and they want to kill him?” 

“And you are going to run away,” Jonghyun growls. The wood underneath the surface begins cracking. Aron frowns sadly. He liked that desk. “Then what is the point of having all this power and authority?” 

“ _Kim Jonghyun_ , did you forget _who_ gave us this power?” Aron reminds. He understands his younger brother’s frustration, but he was slowly tiring of the same conversation. It wasn’t as though his departure was a sudden decision. They both knew it was coming. “The Court gave us our titles, our authority, our _right to reign_.” 

“It’s not like they could take away our sovereignty in the territories,” Jonghyun frowns. 

“No, you’re right. They’ve invested too much into us to take it back,” Aron concedes. “But you forget, they don’t need to start with us. Why start with the two most powerful sons when they could get rid of the others first?” 

“But they’re literally children,” Jonghyun whispers. Aron thinks of his brothers and disagrees, they’re _babies_. _His_ baby brothers. 

“They’re the sons to the King,” Aron states. While some would die to be in their shoes, Aron wishes he could pack all his brothers and run away from the Capitol. He would give up his Crown for a happy family. “A King who fucked up and a father who’s asking his sons to pay for it.” 

“I glad we have Seungcheol though,” Jonghyun smiles sadly. The child that was the King’s ultimate mistake. A sunshine child that neither could imagine their lives without. And a child who played happily on the artificial beach in the courtyard not knowing it was a death trap. “Do you have to leave now though?” 

“It’s one of the Court’s conditions,” Aron says. His knight, Hwang Minhyung was waiting for him down at the stables. They would leave from one of the palace’s side doors and slip away into the unexplored Western forests. Where they were head, who knew? They just had to be far away enough that the Court no longer saw them as a threat. “Once I leave, you’ll be the Crowned Prince.” 

“Is there no other way?” Jonghyun asks, voice cracking halfway through. The Second Prince was no longer looking at him, gaze fixed on the shattering desk beneath his hands. 

Aron feels his chest tighten painfully. Maybe, maybe there way. Maybe if Aron and Jonghyun came together and revolted. After all, the Western and Southern territories were the strongest and most prosperous of all the Capitol’s lands. Combined, maybe they could subdue the Court and destroy the faults in these white marble walls. 

But Aron also thinks of his younger brother, Jeonghan, who was a part of the Yoon family and Jonghyun’s knight-to-be Choi Minki, who was the youngest son of the Choi legacy. He wonders whether either of them would be able to ruin the lives of those they love for an unknown future. He cannot guarantee that a rebellion would solve anything. It might plunge everyone into ruin and chaos. 

For generations, none of his ancestors took that risk. His own father shirked it and allowed the Court to choose a King. And it should have stayed like that. Aron and Jonghyun had a plan. Jonghyun would be King and Aron would flee a traitor just like his oldest aunt did. 

But he wouldn’t trade his younger brothers for the world, and this is where Kwon Aron was selfish. He was his father’s son, and both of them would choose the safety of their loved ones over the peace of future generations. 

Aron looks outside the window of his study. It faced the courtyard where the happy birthday boy was chasing his brothers. The oldest prince smiles and prays they will always smile like that. His ring shines in response to his wish, and Aron kisses his ring on habit, not that he believed his ancestors truly cared.

“ _Dammit_ ,” Jonghyun yelled, slamming his fists into the table once more. Aron sighs as the wood shatters. He really did like that desk.

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. So, trying to write things in order didn't work again. Yeah. Here. So we got the two oldest trying to figure shit out. And yes, this is where Jonghyun marched out in a murderous rage and caught Jeonghan's eye. 
> 
> (OH BTW I GRADUATED. which was another reason why nothing was being written, but I'VE GRADUATED AND IM GONNA START PAYING STUDENT LOANS HA. HA. HA, but yeah, I'll probably still be busy until I get licensed and find a job but heeeey imma start making money JUST IN TIME FOR SEVENTEENS WORLD TOUR :DDD) 
> 
> I'll eventually write Mingyu's training days in the palace, but for now I think my heart wants to move onto the trip to the North so Imma just let myself write and see what happens LOL. I already have this LARGE chunk written but it's TOO FAR ahead to actually publish without ruining the entire story LOL
> 
> Thanks for the patience and sorry for the filler like interlude. I promise this is important tho! This chp is actually plot driven LOOOOL (as tho the other ones aren't but still, a lot of background info at once so...speculate away XD) 
> 
> Thanks for reading and stickin' w/ me. We will return to our scheduled gyuhao probably in the next chap~


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mingyu's first task to prove himself worthy of his royal title: escort the Fifth Prince Lee Jihoon from the Northern Territories back to the Capitol. But before heading out, preparations need to be made. If Mingyu could stop getting lost.

_**Seven Princes** , four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown. _

\---

The Journey North: Prologue 1

“He’s going to the Northern Territories to bring back Prince Jihoon,” Jeonghan echoes. He frowns at the Third Prince. “Isn’t this a little too much for a first task?” 

“It’s what the Court wants,” Jisoo sighs. He gives the Second Prince a pointed look. “And only the _King_ can dispute it.” 

“Oh, shut up.” 

“I didn’t say anything,” Jisoo says wryly. 

“Yet your mind is buzzing,” Jeonghan huffs. He sheds his jacket and walks into the bathing chambers. “Only you would use my gift against me.” 

Jisoo smiles. To be fair, he was the only one who _could_ use Jeonghan’s mind reading against him. Leaning into the plush couch, Jisoo looks around his brother’s living quarters. If he could use three words to describe it, Jisoo would say: bare. 

“That’s not three words,” Jeonghan yells through the doorway.   

Jisoo shrugs in mock apology, not that Jeonghan could see. He looks around, trying to find something distinctly Jeonghan about this space, but the only personal affects in the entire room was a journal and pen at the nightstand. It was so cold, so unlike Jeonghan’s old room in the West Wing. 

“I still use that room you know,” Jeonghan informs, walking out in more casual clothes. “It just didn’t feel right moving into Seungcheol’s space.” 

“As though you had a problem with that before,” Jisoo laughs. In the past, it had been hard to draw the line between Jeonghan and Seungcheol’s things. Seungcheol’s room would be littered with random knick knacks that were obviously the Second Prince’s, and Jeonghan could procure anything the Crown Prince needed from his room. It was without saying that they inhabited each other’s rooms more than their own. When they were children, Jisoo had been included in this mix, but since leaving for the Church, it became something exclusive to his two siblings. It felt a little lonely—ah, but it was the life he chose. 

“You say this as you’ve pretty much made yourself at home into my old room,” Jeonghan scoffs, rolling his eyes. He tries to find the words for it. It’s been two years since he was moved into this space, the official bedchambers for the Crowned Prince, and he might have slept here maybe five times. “It—its different. It’s one thing invading Seungcheol’s space and another to take over it.” 

The Second Prince looks toward the large window—nine large panels of glass that faced the direction of the rising sun, spanning from the floor to the roof. Seungcheol had designed the windows himself so he rises in the morning with the blessing of the Nine Goddesses. Jeonghan understand the sentimental value, but he could not understand why Seungcheol didn’t also work into the design a way to hang up drapes. The summer sun was blinding. 

“There is a little something called magic,” Jisoo says dryly. “Might be a novel concept, but it’s useful for simple tasks like saving lives, inflicting mass destruction and oh, you know, blocking out the sun.” 

“If only your priests could hear you now,” Jeonghan chuckles with raised eyebrows. “Little did they know that their darling Head Priest who they see as the sweetest, most patient human alive is actually a sarcastic little brat.” 

“Only for you my dear brother,” Jisoo smiles charmingly. “Love comes in all different forms.” 

“Go share some of that ‘love’ with your poor lost souls,” Jeonghan suggests with a smile equally blinding. 

The smile-off goes on for a moment before they both crack. Jeonghan starts laughing first and Jisoo quickly succumbs to the giggles. 

“Why are we like this?” Jeonghan asks, trying to catch his breath, but for some reason, seeing Jisoo rolling in laughter on his couch made it hard to not continue. He almost got ahold of himself when the Third Prince falls off the couch and he lost it again. 

“I—I don’t know,” Jisoo gasps from the floor. Jeonghan is laughing so hard he needs to sit down. 

And that how Chan finds them—one lying on the floor and the other leaning against the couch, smothering their giggles and whispering who knows what. The Seventh Prince had come with some paperwork to be signed, but he leaves his brothers there, closing the door as quietly as possible. The signatures could come later. 

He hasn’t seen either Jeonghan or Jisoo look so happy in a long time, and well, he thinks if anyone deserves to be happy, it’s his brothers.

\--- 

Mingyu looks to the right and then to the left. The dark stone corridor was lined with torches and doors equally spaced on either side. There didn’t seem to be an end and nothing distinct about any of the doors. He might be lost. 

_Don’t leave my side and don’t touch random things—_  

Mingyu looks again to the right and then again to the left. The same scene disappears into darkness on either side. He takes a couple hesitant steps to the right. Mingyu looks behind him and sees the same scene stretching into more darkness. 

__—_ and don’t get lost!_

Okay, Mingyu was definitely lost. Was this even the palace? He tries to retrace his steps, but there was nothing different to note. For some reason, he was pretty sure he fell through some wall to get here. Mingyu closes his eyes and tries to remember— 

He had been following Minghao closely because the palace dungeons were a little creepy with magical torches being the only light source. His knight had warned him again and again not to stray away or touch anything, and Mingyu swears he had been extremely careful. 

Still, he tripped over an unevenly paved stone step and reached out to steady himself. But instead of a wall, Mingyu fell through the seemingly solid structure. 

And here he was. Lost in a never-ending corridor with no idea which way to go much less a way out. Great. He could hear Minghao teasing him already, and at this point, Mingyu would gladly embrace his knight’s nagging if it meant getting out of here. 

_Who’s there?_  

Mingyu jumps, looking around frantically. The torches crackle and his shadow shifts. There is no other movement, even the air is still, but a presence lingers right beyond Mingyu’s sight. No matter where he turns, he can’t pinpoint it, but it’s there. 

_Is someone there?_ _Is it you hyung? Is it you? Are you back?_  

“Who are you?” Mingyu asks back. 

_Oh,_ the disappointment is palatable, and the presence begins to fade.  

“Wait, no come back!” Mingyu calls. “I—I’m lost!” 

_I don’t know if I can help you_ , the voice says sadly. _I can’t leave this place. I’ve been stuck here forever._  

“If I help you out, will you help me find my way back?” Mingyu asks. He’s a little desperate and while negotiating with voices that talk directly into his head was probably not the smartest thing, he thinks he can part with half his soul to not be stuck in this continuum forever. 

_You’d help me out?_  

“I’d try,” Mingyu promises. 

The presence seems to be shifting uneasily before finally, _okay_ , and a door slams open. Startled, Mingyu slips and falls forward onto his forearms. He thanks whoever told him to wear long sleeves today—Minghao—because without the extra layer, the rough stone floor would have rubbed his skin raw. 

_Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you_ , the voice exclaims in a panic. _Please don’t run away!_  

“I’m okay,” Mingyu groans, sitting up and rubbing his arms. “I won’t run.”

After all, where would he run to?

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized that it's almost been a year since I've started writing this fic, and I really wanted to write another chapter before we hit the 1 year mark haha. It's kind of funny 'cause the introductions were written 8/2016 to 5/2107 and now we're starting a new arch in 8/2017 hahaha 
> 
> So Mingyu finally has a mission! Why is he in the dungeon and who's that mysterious voice talking to him? And we get to see the 2nd/3rd prince and their dynamic ^^ 
> 
> I really appreciate each and every one of your comments! It makes my heart swell to know that I've been able to create a world people can enjoy and I hope I can continue to do so. Thanks for reading and supporting this fic so far! 
> 
> (so who's going to Diamond Edge in Dallas or KCON LA? ;))) i may or may not have a giveaway planned so keep an eye out on tumblr @were1993 and twitter @were1993fanfics)


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things were not the same. Not that Mingyu would know, he doesn't know how things used to be.

**_Seven Princes_** _, four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown._

\---

The Journey North: Prologue 2

The dinner after the Knighting Ceremony was  _interesting_. 

It started off somber with the princes sitting down at the long table. Mingyu felt ridiculously out of place sitting in between the Eastern Prince and the Seventh Prince, but he didn’t have much choice as Junhui had escorted him to that seat with a sure grip on his elbow. He didn’t even have Minghao’s comforting presence to rely on, and so he fidgets nervously in his seat. 

Noticing his discomfort, Vernon gives him a small smile as he settles across from the Lost Prince. Mingyu tries to return it, but he’s immediately distracted by the scraping of a large chair at the head of the table. Jeonghan pulls out the chair even more but doesn’t sit in it. He stares at the seat as though waiting for permission. 

“It’s about time you take that seat,” Jisoo says evenly as he walks into the dining room. “After all, you are the next in line for the crown.” 

 Jeonghan turns to his brother quietly. Their eyes seem to be communicating something, and knowing the two, they probably were. Whatever was being exchanged seemed to displease Jeonghan as the Second Prince looks away first. 

“Yoon Jeonghan,” Jisoo says with a gentle smile but a hard gaze. 

The following silence was stifling, and while Mingyu has never seen a dragons’ standoff, he imagines it would be something like this. Sighing, the Second Prince sits down reluctantly. Jisoo’s eyes close as his smile widen, and just like that the calming aura returns to the room. Mingyu is almost certain the Third Prince was using his magic to soothe everyone—or more specifically, just him. None of the other princes seemed concerned at the display, and from Chan’s small sigh, Mingyu guesses it must be a common occurrence. 

“Don’t look so upset,” Jisoo chides, sitting down to Jeonghan’s left. “It’s your seat now.” 

Mingyu fiddles with the hem of his ceremonial jacket and wonders. They never call Jeonghan the Crowned Prince. It was always the next in line or just the Second Prince. With Choi Seungcheol missing for more than two years, it only seemed natural that Yoon Jeonghan would be the Crowned Prince. 

“Don’t you have Court orders to report,” Jeonghan prompts, and if he sounds a little agitated, Jisoo doesn’t point it out. 

“The Court thinks it’s Jihoon,” Jisoo says, and the reaction is instant. 

“It can’t be!” Junhui exclaims, standing up so quickly his chair falls backwards with a dull thud. “Jihoon would  _never_ —” 

“You seem very sure,” Jeonghan interrupts, and Mingyu thinks he sees a flash of panic cross Junhui’s face. “How do you know it’s not Jihoon? No one’s heard from him for almost a year, and aren’t  _your_  territories at war?” 

“Jun-hyung, please sit down,” Chan insists. Mingyu shrinks into his chair, trying to avoid being in Chan’s direct line of sight, and it was difficult. He was a little too tall. “I know where you’re coming from and I don’t think it’s Jihoon-hyung either. However, when you react like that, it only makes you seem suspicious.” 

“What? Like the war is just a cover for them to work together?” Vernon asks with wide eyes. Mingyu blinks and stares at the Western Prince. The younger prince looks appropriately confused, but Mingyu wonders whether Vernon is well-aware of the implication of his words. 

He looks up to Junhui just as the elder sits down with the chair magically coming up to its original position. The Eastern Prince looks across the table at the Western Prince and frowns. 

“Hansol, don’t talk about things you don’t understand,” Junhui says firmly. “The Western territories would not understand the concerns of either the East or North.” 

“Dark magic has always been a concern of the Western territories,” Vernon replies, returning the other’s gaze with easy nonchalance. “If we are keeping secrets from each other, I think I need to talk about  _things I don’t understand_.” 

“Sixlet, I—” Junhui starts, but Jeonghan cuts him off with a downward hand motion. 

“We are here to celebrate the fact the Fourth Prince now has a knight,” Jeonghan says, closing his eyes tiredly. He leans back into the chair and just talks, not bothering to make eye contact or even acknowledging the table. “You know what, let’s bring all the knights in. It seems quite unreasonable to leave out the other main character.” 

Jeonghan eases himself off the back of the chair and stands up. He motions for the doors and within moments, the knights are standing behind the chair of their respective prince—other than prince knights who stay seated and Seokmin who stands behind an empty chair. 

“You called,” Seungkwan greets with their salute, displaying his ring proudly. 

“Come eat with us,” Jeonghan says, waving for more chairs. “The Goddesses know that your princes can’t have a proper meal without their knight’s present.” 

“Well, it’s been a long time since we’ve had a little fun!” Seungkwan exclaims. He walks toward the front of the table, ignoring Vernon’s quiet— _I don’t think this is the right time._  “It’s time for the BooSeokSoo—BooSeok show!” 

“Mingyu?” 

The Lost Prince looks up at his knight’s surprised expression, and it takes a moment before Mingyu realizes he’s still slouched into the chair in an attempt to avoid all attention. 

“What are you doing?” Minghao asks with genuine curiosity. 

“I—nothing,” Mingyu stammers, sitting up in his chair quickly. “I was—uh, tired.” 

“Do you want to retire to your bed chambers then?” Chan offers, looking to his brother with concern. “It’s been a long day for everyone and well—” 

“Oh man! We haven’t done this in a while!” Seokmin claps happily, and with a click of his heels, flakes of colored paper fall from the ceiling. Mingyu doesn’t even get a chance to respond when the dining room goes dark and suddenly a light shines blindingly on him. “Oh oops, sorry Prince Mingyu, it’s been a while so our spotlight accuracy has rusted a little.” 

The lights shift to Junhui and Wonwoo next to them, and for someone who was ready to fight the Court a little earlier, Junhui shrinks into his chair in obvious embarrassment. 

“Can—can we not do this?” the Eastern Prince asks weakly. 

“It’s tradition,” Seokmin says solemnly. “Is it not, Prince Jeonghan?” 

“It is indeed tradition,” Jeonghan nods solemnly. “Even I have gone through this.” 

“But Jisoo-hyung and Chan are your  _brothers_ ,” Junhui stresses. “I literally met Wonwoo today.” 

“Yeah, well, even with the blood relation, I wasn’t exactly bursting with eagerness to kiss Jeonghan-hyung,” Chan comments dryly. 

“Oh, I need to kiss him?” Wonwoo asks, looking at his fellow knights for an answer. 

“It’s just one of those unofficial traditions,” Seokmin shrugs. His smile was almost as blinding as the spotlight. “When we kiss our rings, it’s a vow to our kingdom. So in exchange—” 

“—we kiss our princes to show our vow to them!” Seungkwan finishes with a flourish as though that were the most logical reasoning. Mingyu frowns, does this mean that  _technically_  he and Minghao should—? “Former Knight Choi Minki started this tradition to fluster his prince and well, it kind of stuck ever since!” 

“It’s almost like payback?” Vernon explains, seeing Mingyu’s utter confusion. The young prince mistaken it for bewilderment towards the tradition, and Mingyu is thankful. He was not about to admit to what he  _really_  was thinking. “For our knights, the entire ceremony is basically us asking them for submission. So this is kind of their way to embarrass us? I mean usually, there’s a larger audience, but after what happened this afternoon, it was probably good that the banquet— _Seungkwan, stop_.” 

Vernon tries to squirm away but his knight already had him in a headlock and presses a loud wet kiss against the other’s cheek. After being released, the Western Prince just gives Seungkwan an exasperated look and looks over at Mingyu helplessly and thoroughly embarrassed. 

“Well, not quite like that,” Seokmin laughs. “It’s usually—” 

“On the lips,” Jeonghan supplies helpfully. 

“Hannie, you really shouldn’t—” Jisoo sighs, but he’s cut off by a loud squeal. 

Mingyu doesn’t know what to think when he sees Wonwoo lean over Junhui’s chair. The knight has his fingers under the prince’s chin, tilting the other’s face upward. It was slow motion in Mingyu’s eyes as Wonwoo leans in and their lips touch. There is a spike of  _something_  uncomfortable but Mingyu wouldn’t name the emotion—it felt too close to jealousy. 

When Wonwoo pulls away, Junhui looks a little mortified and immediately shrinks even further into his seat. From the head of the table, Jeonghan looks way too smug and Seungkwan was the one who squealed. 

“ _Oh my goddess_ ,” Seokmin gasps. He looks like was about to start wheezing. Giving himself a moment to gain composure, the knight snaps his fingers and the spotlight disappears with all the normal lighting returning to the dining hall. “What I meant to say was that it’s usually after a long toast or speech detailing whatever woes you have towards your prince and then giving them a kiss on the cheek but I mean—you do you Wonwoo-hyung!” 

“Oh,” it was Wonwoo’s turn to flush bright red. 

“Well, now that we’ve gotten all of that in order,” Chan says apathetically, but his eyes were twinkling. “Should we all sit and have dinner?” 

“We’re going to just have dinner after  _that_?” Seungkwan squawks. “Your Highness, I must disagree!” 

“Seungkwan, can you not?” Vernon whispers, trying to pull his knight into the seat next to him, but Seungkwan was having none of that. The knight was already coming around to their side, marching as though he were on a mission. 

“I know he can’t hurt me,” Junhui says quietly. The Lost Prince almost laughs at the comically terrified face his brother had. “But for some reason I still want to run.” 

“We could?” Wonwoo suggests. Mingyu looks up just in time to catch Wonwoo’s eye. 

This was the first time in years that they’ve acknowledged each other, and Mingyu doesn’t know what he was expecting. Either way, he’s a little disappointed when Wonwoo just smiles and returns his gaze to  _his_  prince. 

“Alright, before people start running away, I might as well tell you all what else the Court said,” Jisoo says loudly. Everyone pauses at the word  _Court_ , and nine pairs of eyes go to the speaking prince. “They want Mingyu to go to the Northern Territories and bring the Fifth Prince to the Capitol.” 

And all hell breaks loose. 

“No! I refuse! How can they ask—” 

“Mingyu-hyung is  _not_  going! He wouldn’t survive—” 

“For someone who’s  _just_  learned the foundations of Formal Magic—” 

Mingyu might have felt a little touched by his brothers’ display of caring if it weren’t for the fact their dissent was rooted in his inability to take care of himself. Growing up, he didn’t always have his mother or Wonwoo by his side. After his mother died, Mingyu had dived right into the worst district of the Capitol and built a life for himself. He knows how to fend for himself, and while he had never been formally trained in combat, Mingyu was no stranger to self-protection and evading dangerous situations. 

“Is that what they want or what they’ve ordered?” Jeonghan asks. His voice rang clear over the noise, and the disgruntled princes quiet. 

“It’s what they’ve ordered,” Jisoo says and gives Jeonghan a knowing look. “Only the  _King_  can contest it.” 

“But—” Junhui starts again. 

“I’ll go,” Mingyu interrupts loudly. He almost gets up, but the chair scrapes awkwardly against the floor so he sits back down. 

The silence that followed was strangely comfortable. Jeonghan looks rather satisfied and Jisoo smiles serenely like he knew this was going to happen. Mingyu accidentally catches Wonwoo’s eye and sees that proud, proud smile. One that he remembers so well from his childhood, one that made him wonder—Minghao places a reassuring hand on his shoulder and Mingyu stops wondering. 

“I’ll go,” he repeats himself, feeling much bolder than before. “I will go to the Northern Territories and bring back the Fifth Prince.” 

“Seungkwan and I will go with,” Vernon offers, flashing Mingyu a lazy smile. “I’m not in a rush to head back to the Western Territories because they run themselves so well. Jun-hyung needs to head back East and no one else can leave the Capitol.” 

“I think that’s a good idea,” Junhui agrees. “Neither our Lost Prince nor his knight have been north so having a guide might be good. And it’s always more fun to travel in groups!” 

“They keep talking like I’m not here,” Seokmin stage whispers to Seungkwan at the other side of the table. The other knight gives him a sad look and shakes his head slowly. “It’s as though they’re forgetting I need to  _return_  to the Northern Territories.” 

“No one’s forgotten about you Seokmin,” Jeonghan chuckles. He turns to the knight with a small smile and holds out his ring hand. “But do you have time to travel leisurely?” 

“It’s not like my prince is doing anything in his ice fortress,” Seokmin shrugs, taking the Second Prince’s hand and pressing a kiss against the other’s ring. “To my prince and then my kingdom and her crown.” 

“Has he been well?” Jisoo asks. Leaning over the dining table, Seokmin cheerfully holds out his hand over the table and Jisoo offers his hand. 

“To my prince and then my kingdom and the Goddesses that protect her,” Seokmin recites first, kissing Jisoo’s ring. “He’s doing as well as any insomniac alchemist can.” 

“Is he still working on—ah,” Chan stops himself and merely holds out his own ring hand. “Hyung is still working hard isn’t he?” 

“A little too hard,” the knight answers with a sheepish smile. Reach over the table once more, Seokmin takes the younger prince’s hand and also presses his lips against his ring. “To my prince and then my kingdom and our darling maknae.” 

“So you’ll be going with us?” Vernon asks, holding up his pinky only. 

“Yep! It’ll be just like old times,” Seokmin laughs brightly. He carefully and exaggeratedly takes Vernon’s little finger and kisses the ring. “To my prince and then my kingdom and our dear Sixlet.” 

Mingyu isn’t sure how to react when Seokmin leans over the table with his hand out and eyes lowered respectfully. Having spent most of his days training with Chan or tagging along with the princes, Mingyu has never had another knight ask for his hand like this. He looks up at Minghao for some help and the knight looks just as baffled. 

“It’s just a greeting,” Jisoo explains helpfully. “Jihoon isn’t here so his knight is here to greet everyone. It’s a formal Court decorum. This is your brother offering you his well wishes.” 

“Okay,” Mingyu says slowly, dragging out the word in hesitation. He slowly places his ring hand in the Seokmin’s hand and tries not to flinch when he feels the pressure of the other’s lips on his ring. This was merely going to be another tradition he was not ever getting used to. 

“To my prince and then my kingdom and the return of our Lost Prince,” Seokmin declares. He lets go of Mingyu’s hand and turns back to the Second Prince. “And of course, I already paid my respects to the Court for my prince.” 

“Is this intentional?” Junhui asks. Mingyu blinks in realization. Seokmin never asked for the Eastern Prince. “No well wishes even for the Knight Ceremony?” 

“I personally mean no disrespect,” Seokmin responds slowly, but there was a hardness to the other’s voice that Mingyu hasn’t heard from the smiley knight of the North. “But our territories are in conflict.” 

“I didn’t realize a border scuffle meant a complete disregard of etiquette,” Junhui frowns. “How disappointing.” 

“Prince Jihoon will be equally disappointed to know you’ve been treating this as a  _border scuffle_ ,” Seokmin says, and while the knight was smiling, his displeasure was obvious. 

“Alright, that’s enough,” Jisoo says, halting the conversation. He claps his hands and nervous servants start bringing in food. “I’ve made all my announcements, and I’m famished. Let’s eat. Sit, sit, sit!” 

Everyone did their best to keep the atmosphere light and happy, but Mingyu could see everyone rearranging their food more than eating it. Across the table, Seokmin and Seungkwan were discussing popular culture loudly while the Western Prince made random and not always relevant comments. Beside him, Chan was eating quietly, answering any questions directed to him in monosyllables. At least on his other side, Minghao and Wonwoo were engaging in conversation, even if both knights glanced at their own respective prince’s carefully. Down the table, Junhui was talking quietly with Jisoo, and the Third Prince seemed to be satisfied just listening, offering no more than quiet nods. 

Mingyu isn’t sure what he feels when he catches Jeonghan’s eye. The Second Prince smiled, but it seemed almost painful— _this is not how we used to be, this is not_ —and Mingyu doesn’t know how to respond. So he looks down at his own food and avoids eye contact with anyone else. 

Over the past week, he’s learned of a family he never knew he had, and over the past week, he learns of how terribly lonely it was to be a part of the Royal Family. He thinks his brothers like him, but there was something that set him apart. They shared happier memories that he had no part of and will never be a part of.

Having shifted the mushroom in his plate for the fifth time, Mingyu almost jumps when he feels Minghao’s elbow knock into his arm. Instead of pulling away, Minghao keeps contact, and rather than painful, the dig of the other’s elbow was comforting—an anchor almost.

Mingyu hides a smile. Well, if nothing else, he had Minghao.

 ---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought for a very long time how to post this because lots of things happened at once. But I kinda decided to keep it overwhelming because...I wanted to highlight kind of how they're really trying really hard to stay the way they were. There are moments of silliness (and poor seungkwan tries really hard) because the princes have that relationship and they are just silly with each other BUT things aren't the way they were anymore. So there's a strain in their relationship, but at the same time, there are some things that are just how they are.
> 
> So yeah, sorry for rambling, haha, the next chapter should be a continuation of what happens w/ mingyu as he's...following voices in his head LOL I'm really nervous about the next few chapters 'cause...i'm trying to set a new tone for the story and...i'm not sure if you guys will like it haha
> 
> Once again, thank you so much for those who have given my story a try. In the year that I've been writing this, my perspectives on the members and their personalities have changed and that will definitely affect how I write them now. There are characters that I've gone too far to change at this point LOL so thank you for accepting the OOCness of them.
> 
> Thanks guys and I really do appreciate all the supportive comments and just...thanks. I've worked hard in creating this world (and still trying to do so) and...I'm just very thankful that you guys have given this non-linear, pretty much a mess of a story a go.
> 
> (Hi I'm emotional) (Hi emotional, I'm dad LOL OKAY IMMA STOP THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A TOUCHING MOMENT AND I RUINED IT MYSELF) (I'm such a mess right now LOL)


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mingyu really shouldn't be listening to voices in his head.

**_Seven Princes_**   _, four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown._

\---

The Journey North: Prologue 3

Mingyu is careful when he steps in through the open door. Looking around, he tries to figure out what he just walked into.  

While there wasn’t a clear light source, Mingyu could still make out the basic layout of the room. There was a long desk covered with heating equipment and glassware, and the shelves were piled high with bottles and boxes. He spies a charmed ice box in the back and a couple vents on the ceiling. It was almost like a kitchen, and the familiarity made Mingyu feel a little better about the whole situation. 

 _Back here! I’m back here!_  

Curious and maybe a little eager, Mingyu walks towards the back of the room. The large symbol on the back wall was intimidating, but he recognizes it from stealing peeks at Wonwoo’s homework back in the day. They were the symbols for life and death—life above death. Mingyu pauses and looks around the room again. Oh, he was in some alchemy laboratory. That’s why it looked so much like a kitchen. 

Looking back at the engraved symbol, Mingyu realizes the gold ribbons that encircled the logo was actually made of words. He squints to read them in the dimly light room: _vita incerta, mors were_ over the top and _vive ut vivas_ on the bottom. 

“The only certain thing in life is death, so live your life to the fullest _,_ ” Mingyu murmurs outloud. It had a nice ring to it, and he wonders what this slogan was for. A department of alchemy? Hadn’t alchemy been outlawed in the Capitol—Mingyu yelps as the ground shakes beneath him. 

Right in front of his feet, the stone tiles start falling, revealing a circular hole and pink light shining through. A glass display case slowly emerges, and Mingyu thinks he can make out a jewel shaped _something_ inside the pale pink light. It finally stops at eye level, floating steadily in the air, and the beaming light dims. 

It was a light pink princess cut diamond, but somehow Mingyu doubts it was for decorative purposes. No fool was stupid enough to think lightly of pretty jewels in an alchemist’s laboratory. There was a reason alchemy had been banned all those centuries ago in the Capitol—the War for the Sorcerer’s Stone was still considered one of the worst tragedies in history. So Mingyu stays away, even taking a step back just to observe the jewel. 

 _Hi! It’s me!_  

Mingyu blinks. 

 _Oh, sorry, let me just—_  

Mingyu’s not sure what he expected but whatever it was, he did not expect the diamond to be replaced with a white creature with sparkly eyes and a blue diamond embedded in its pink head. What _is_ that? 

“Hi!” it smiles. It has a long body with two arms and two legs, and its head was larger than any of its body. Somehow it stays upright and presses a round hand—joint? finger? arm? what should he call it?—against the glass display case. “I can’t believe you actually figured out the passcode, bongie.” 

“Passcode?” Mingyu echoes. 

“Hyung made a passcode,” it says cheerfully. “And you read it just like hyung would have, bongie. Instead of just _live so that you may live_ , you translated it as _live your life to the fullest_ , bongie!” 

“Oh,” Mingyu blinks again. He didn’t realize he translated it differently and honestly, that wasn’t his main focus at the moment. Mingyu just couldn’t believe this little white creature was actually talking. It was super cute, don’t get him wrong, but what _is_ it? 

“Only if you read the passcode,” it continues on. “Will I come out, bongie!” 

“I…see,” Mingyu says slowly. He squints and tries to reword the question a couple times. No matter how he phrases it, it sounds rude so Mingyu decides to just go for it. He guesses there are worse way to die than being blinded to death by a pink diamond. “What are you?” 

“Me?” the creature blinks its impossibly large eyes. It seems to be contemplating the question before answering sadly. “I’m not too sure, bongie.” 

“You’re not sure,” Mingyu repeats. He finds himself at a loss of what to say. Well, if it doesn’t know what it is, how is Mingyu supposed to know? 

“You’re the first to be able to hear me,” it admits. Mingyu tries not to squeal at how cutely it twirls while talking. “Even hyung couldn’t understand me and I think hyung was the one who gave me my voice, bongie.” 

“Well, okay, how about we start over then?” Mingyu says, shaking his head. “Hi, I’m Kim Mingyu.” 

“I don’t know if I have a name, bongie,” it admits even sadder than before. Mingyu panics when he sees the blue diamond on its head slowly dim.  

“B—Bong Bong,” Mingyu exclaims, scaring both himself and the little creature. “I’m going to call you Bong Bong, or Bongie for short, if that’s okay!” 

“Bong Bongie?” it says slowly and Mingyu tries not to coo at how cute the little creature was. It smiles happily up at him through the glass. “I like that hyung!” 

“Alright, so um, can you get me out of here?” Mingyu asks, finally remembering why he was there in the first place. 

“If you can get me out, I should be able to get you out too,” Bongie smiles. It holds out it’s limb and presses it against the glass. “I promise, bongie.” 

Mingyu presses his pointer finger against the glass but pulls back at the startled whine from Bongie. 

“No, hyung, your pinky!” Bongie exclaims. “Hyung taught me that it’s pinky promises, bongie!” 

Mingyu smiles as he switches to his pinky finger with the royal ring and tries not to melt as the white creature nods happily, tapping its limb against the expanse of Mingyu’s finger. 

“Alright, so how can I get you out?” Mingyu asks, motioning at the floating display case. 

“Will you let me link magic with you?” Bongie asks. It rubs the diamond on its head shyly. “I probably can break out of this myself, but hyung made this so all my magic is contained in this box, bongie. I just need a link to the outside and I think I could do the rest myself.” 

“You’re pretty powerful aren’t you?” Mingyu smiles. 

“Bongie is,” it puffs up its chest—or body or extension of its limbs or whatever—with pride. “This box is probably more to protect hyung than to protect me.” 

“So how do we…do this?” Mingyu asks cautiously. He remembers Chan talking about magic linking, and he’s learned how to open his magic channel for Minghao so his knight could tap into Mingyu’s large magical reservoir. It wasn’t too difficult, but Mingyu wasn’t sure whether his preexisting magical bond facilitated it.   

“Hyung put a piece of me into the wall,” Bongie says, running to the other side of the glass display case and pointing at the large engraved symbol. “I don’t know where, but I can feel it, bongie. If you can get it somehow, that will be our link!” 

Mingyu walks around the floating display case and hesitantly traces the alchemy symbols with his fingers. They were cold and grimy. Mingyu tries to think where would anyone try to hide a piece of pink diamond—feeling around the edges and grooves around the letters. He systematically sweeps his hands over the engraved symbols from top to bottom and from left to right. Nothing, just smooth edges and cough inducing dust. 

Mingyu steps back a little to see if there was anything he was missing. The symbol and its words were the only things on the smooth stone wall that he could see. Not that he could see too much with the unidentifiable light source of the room and the blue light of Bongie’s diamond. Sighing, Mingyu crouches down and buries his face into his hands. 

“Eh, hyung, are you alright? Hyung?” 

Great, great, great, he was going to die here and Bongie was going to watch the flesh rot off his bones. Maybe this was better. Maybe just dying here was better than dying out there in the Northern Territories or by the hands of Prince Lee Jihoon. Maybe he wasn’t fit to play these political games or read in between the lines. Maybe he should have never agreed to let Minghao bring him to the palace. 

Minghao. He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. For some reason, he had no doubt that Minghao would find him, and for some reason, he wants to beat Minghao to it. He’ll get himself out of this predicament so the knight couldn’t tease him about getting lost. And if he does well enough, he could even brag about being able to link with magically creatures! 

Mingyu raises his head with renewed vigor just in time to see a sparkle of pink in the wall. The Lost Prince blinks as he sees scratches in the wall. He feels across the surface and realizes they were words. The first phrase was something he could read _ars longa, vita brevis_ —art is long, life is short—but he could not make out the second phrase as there were too many strokes for it to be any language he recognizes. 

He tilts his head and something pink glimmers right inside the stroke for _vita_. Mingyu scratches at the pink sparkle, and something comes loose. In his excitement, he almost drops the small jewel shard. Thankfully, Mingyu manages to catch it with his free hand. 

“Found it!” the Lost Prince exclaims, holding it in his palm. Turning, he stands up and shows it to the magical being. 

“Yay!” Bongie cheers. It presses both limbs against the glass and jumps happily. It was so cute. 

Mingyu pauses to think, should he be calling Bongie it or they? Technically, it was for objects and the like, and Bongie was not an object—alright, _they_ it was. He frowns. That was a strange tangent for his mind to have wandered off on. 

“Hyung?” Bongie ask hesitantly. Mingyu realizes he zoned out for too long. 

“Sorry, what?” Mingyu laughs sheepishly. 

“I was just saying to stand back to the front, bongie,” they said. “Hyung’s done this before. He read those words and it worked!” 

Mingyu probably shouldn’t trust Bongie as much as he did. After all, they didn’t even know what they were! Yet, Mingyu found himself complying with a skip in his step. 

“Say which words?” Mingyu asks, moving around so he was facing display case and the wall. Catching sight of his ring, Mingyu pauses and sighs. Using his free hand, he taps his ring twice. There was no harm in being cautious. If nothing else, his knight would probably like to know the Lost Prince wasn't dead in some dungeon. 

“The ones that wrap all the way around!” Bongie says, pointing at the large symbol. “The words themselves!” 

Breathing in deeply, Mingyu holds out his hand with the small pink jewel piece and looks up at the symbol on the wall. Well, he was going to do this and breathes out. 

“ _Vita incerta, mors were; vive ut vivas_ ,” Mingyu says evenly. It was weird to feel someone _not_ Minghao link to his magic source, but it wasn’t painful. In fact, it tickled a little. This time when the pink light shines bright, it embraces him gently. 

 _Thank you, hyung_. _Bongie will do the rest._

\---

The end or continue?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI, SO UM. Originally I actually drew like a comic strip for this chapter so this is probably why it read kinda like a shounen manga ('cause...it was LOL) and then I remembered this was a fanfic. So yeah. HA HA HA 
> 
> Was the mysterious voice what people were guessing? ^^ It's Bongie!! I will say that this is a pretty new development because originally, Mingyu was just going to find the jewel and "woah! I linked with this jewel that no one else could" kind of shounen manga shit. But with the creation of Bong Bongie, I was like '...well, I mean a cute side kick is also kind of shounen manga shit.' 
> 
> So yeah, uh, if you could tell, this story is slowly going to go into more action/adventure. At least for the Journey North. We'll go back into more political intrigue and stuffs as this arc (??? can i call it that???) progresses. 
> 
> Thanks to all my current readers who've followed this for so long! All of your support has been amazing ;; And welcome new readers! (...if I have any, LOL 24 chapters is probably super intimidating to some so thanks for joining us!) 
> 
> <3


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wonwoo might have crossed the line (he didn't), and Seungkwan tries to help (he doesn't).

**_Seven Princes_ ** _, four territories, three districts, two urban legends and one crown._

\---

The Journey North: Prologue 4

The banquet had been a strained affair. Wonwoo wasn’t fond of politics, and he hopes it didn’t show on his face. 

He’s always known Seokmin to be a fun if not rowdy character. The Fifth Knight was always laughing and smiling and cracking jokes. Wonwoo knew the Fourth and Fifth Prince were at odds, and while he logically understood, he hadn’t expected to be on the opposite side of a friend. Seokmin’s cold smile reminds Wonwoo why he rejected the top knight candidate nomination in the first place. He should not have been the Fourth Prince’s knight, but here he was. 

Wonwoo smiles. He really didn’t expect Kim Mingyu to be the Lost Prince. All the jokes and games of pretend in their childhood ended up coming true. Only Wonwoo was not his knight. Even though Wonwoo knew of Seo Myungho’s prowess and abilities, he still worried. Mingyu was—well, Mingyu could be helpful or a handful. 

Speaking with Myungho for a little during the banquet put him more at ease. It was obvious how much Myungho cared for his prince—always checking on the other’s expression and offering quiet touches of reassurance. If there was anything Wonwoo learned in their childhood, it would be that Mingyu thrived off of affection, and Myungho seemed to be well aware of it.

“What are you smiling about all secretive?” Junhui asks, stopping suddenly in the middle of the hallway. Wonwoo collides into his prince’s back and moves back quickly with an apology at the tip of his tongue. Junhui beats him to the punch. “If you’re sorry, tell me what’s on your mind.” 

“I—should I have addressed Seok-uh, the Fifth Knight for his conduct?” Wonwoo makes up on the spot. He had been wondering this, and for some reason, Wonwoo didn’t want to tell his prince that he was thinking of another prince. For some nagging reason, the Fourth Knight feels that Junhui wouldn't like it. “Even if Prince Jihoon refused to send greeting, the Fifth Knight should not have addressed you in such a way.” 

“Oh, _that_ ,” Junhui hums, turning to Wonwoo with a puzzled expression. He closes the distance between them and reaches out to fix the mandarin buttons on his collar. “How should I explain?” 

“Your highness?” Wonwoo breathes. He means to ask for clarification or maybe the reason why Junhui keeps coming closer. But before he could get another word out, Junhui tugs him in so they’re cheek to cheek. 

“I wouldn’t worry about what happened in the dining room,” Junhui whispers into his ear. “We all have our part in this play.” 

Wonwoo doesn’t know how to respond or even if he was supposed to. He tries not to make any embarrassing noises when he realizes one of Junhui’s hands was caressing down his back, but Wonwoo couldn’t help the squeak when the other hand curled loosely around his waist. 

“The walls have eyes and the floors have ears,” Junhui chuckles breathlessly into his ear. “We all play the part we’re meant to. Me, you, Seokmin and even Jihoon.” 

Wonwoo knows he should be listening and something in his mind is sending him a large red flag— _if this is all a play, then what exactly are you and Prince Jihoon—?_ But he’s distracted by the other’s light touches and how Junhui’s body was warm against his and well, Wonwoo couldn’t say it necessarily felt unpleasant. 

“Not here, but when we go back east,” Junhui whispers. The slow almost sensual patterns the prince was tracing stops. With his arms circled around his knight, he squeezes Wonwoo gently like a hug. “I’ll tell you about the true war we’re fighting.” 

“The true—?” Wonwoo gets cut off with a kiss against his ear. 

“Let’s go to my room, hm?” Junhui purrs, leaning back with an amused smile. He turns around to continue their trek down the hallway, but Wonwoo has one more question. 

“Are you upset about the kiss?” Wonwoo blurts out before he loses courage. He had been acutely aware of his prince’s embarrassment and the Second Prince’s amusement. Wonwoo knows of Prince Jeonghan’s joking ways, and any other day, he would be the last to fall for such tricks. The Knighting Ceremony had made him bold—he stood side by side his prince from the start, he stood equal to his prince, and he may have crossed the line. 

“The kiss?” Junhui echoes, turning back around to face Wonwoo. 

“I should not have risen to Prince Jeonghan’s provocation,” Wonwoo says with a hint of guilt. He looks down at Junhui’s shoes. “I know that I’ve overstepped my boundaries, and I promise that I’m not the type to do so normally.” 

“Oh, the kiss!” Junhui exclaims, bursting out in laughter. Wonwoo could only stare blankly as Junhui leans against the hallway walls, shaking with giggles. “Oh Wonwoo, am I upset?” 

“I—I apologize if I have upset you,” Wonwoo says, resisting the urge to shrink into himself. While it didn’t seem like Junhui was angry-upset, the prince could still very much be in denial-upset. 

“Oh no!” Junhui insists. He skips over and pats his knight’s shoulder rapidly. “Don’t be sorry.” 

“I—” 

“I just told you to not be sorry,” Junhui smiles brightly. He leans in conspiratorially, not quite as close as last time but just enough for him to whisper. “You played your role very well. Too well. And I’m very proud.” 

Wonwoo gets a second kiss on the cheek as a reward, but for some reason, he doesn’t want it. He wasn’t just playing a role in this large palace act. Wonwoo had _wanted_ to kiss—oh, okay, that was definitely crossing a line.   

\--- 

Seungkwan knows that Wonwoo was going to come to him at some point. After all, he must have a lot of questions about what happened at the banquet. And Seungkwan, for all his gossip and information webs, might not have all the answers. 

He doesn’t actually know what was going on with scuffle between the Eastern and Northern territories—Seokmin always managed to avoid any questions and Seungkwan wasn’t fearless enough to ask Prince Junhui himself. Some people whispered that it was a personal issue between the two princes, debatable as Seungkwan has known them personally. Others question whether it had anything to do with the secret project the Fifth Prince headed, debatable Vernon had said but refused to elaborate. 

“I can’t tell you what Jihoon-hyung is working on,” Vernon had said apologetically. This had been three years ago. “Seungcheol-hyung made us all swear to keep it among the brothers.” 

While it would have been easier to just make Vernon talk, Seungkwan never backed away from a challenge. And it was quite a protected secret. No one seemed to know anything other than the seven princes who refused to talk. Even Soonyoung, the most privileged confidante to the Crowned Prince, admitted that it was beyond his rank to know. To this day, he still doesn’t know exactly what Prince Jihoon’s secret project was, but Seungkwan was not the Court Gossip for no reason. 

Over the years, Seungkwan gathered three points: one, the Crowned Prince had been very hesitant to give the project to Prince Jihoon; two, it was a project only Prince Jihoon could complete; and finally, Vernon laughed about carrots a lot.

The last one might seem like a moot point, but Vernon very rarely laughs about food, especially not to the extent of seeing sliced carrots and bursting out in giggles. It had been a weird little quirk, and at first, Seungkwan had chalked it up to some inside joke he wasn’t privy to. It wasn’t until recently, chatting with some of the dining staff, that they mentioned it started when Prince Vernon was thirteen right after he returned of the prince’s annual get together. And around the time Seungkwan estimates the project to have started.

Basically, it was a dangerous project that only an alchemist could work on which had some relation to carrots. 

Seungkwan realizes how stupid it sounded, but he’s always trusted his gut instinct when it came to Vernon. He’s almost never wrong. 

But instead of any questions of the East and North, Wonwoo’s first question had thrown Seungkwan off. The elder had called him to the library and quickly cornered him in the section dedicated to old Capitol records. Seungkwan had been ready for questions about Seokmin, about Prince Jihoon and even about Prince Junhui if the other knight were to ask, but nothing prepared him for this. 

“How strong are your feelings after the bond is established?” Wonwoo asks urgently. “And does it last?” 

“Excuse me,” Seungkwan says blankly. 

“After establishing your bond with your prince,” Wonwoo explains. He looks behind him as though he were worried someone would overhear. Seungkwan wasn’t as worried—he’s never heard of anyone hanging out in these shelves other than for a good make out session. Capitol records were shelved and then never touched again. There was no reason to. It wasn't like anyone could read them. “They say you feel a certain amount of affection.” 

“Yes,” Seungkwan nods. 

“How strong are they usually?” Wonwoo asks. 

“Well, it depends on the bond and well, as they’ve taught us, it’s not really the strength of the affection that will dictate your true—,” Seungkwan begins to ramble but then stops. _Oh_ , could it be? “It feels like love at first sight sometimes.” 

“Is that…normal?” Wonwoo questions, and he looks a little desperate for an affirmative. 

But Seungkwan was the worst person to answer. He was the guilty one who’s feelings didn’t fade, and he was the guilty one who accidentally let his feelings be known. He was the guilty one who allowed his prince to continue this weird whatever they were because Seungkwan selfishly wanted it.   

Even so, Wonwoo came to him looking for advice so Seungkwan shoves those guilty feelings away. 

“Yes,” Seungkwan says with much more confidence than he had— _you’re a bad liar_ , his prince would laugh. “It’s normal.” 

“How long does it last?” Wonwoo asks insistently. Seungkwan smothers a laugh. This was a different Wonwoo, but the Sixth Knight didn’t hate it. Maybe it was a good thing they ended up together. He hasn’t seen either Prince Junhui or Wonwoo so shaken up before, and his informants found it just as hilarious so the updates had been endless. 

“It lasts for however long it takes for both of you to get used to the bond,” Seungkwan recites the textbook answer. He knows Wonwoo knows this, but it was interesting to see the other nod as if he were hearing it for the first time. “It’s normal to harbor strong feelings for your prince. He’s the one you’ve devoted your life to.” 

“That’s true,” Wonwoo says slowly, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. “So…should I talk to Seokmin or would that be a bad idea now?” 

“You know Seokmin-hyung doesn’t care _that_ much about politics,” Seungkwan laughs in relief. They were finally heading into a territory he was comfortable with. No more talk about feelings or more specifically feelings about princes. 

Soonyoung had warned him once about this— _it might feel like a crush, it might feel like true love, but whatever it is, it will calm itself as the bond between a Prince and his knight solidifies._

 _What happens if it doesn’t calm?_

Soonyoung smiled, _well, I guess that’s true love_. 

And Seungkwan refuses to believe it.

\---

The end or continue?

\---

Surprise present for a quarter of 100! <3 Thank you guys!

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/159271639@N03/36416824893/in/dateposted/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sup. So basically I got stressed out and I ended up writing maybe 75% of three chapters. LOL So lots of updates from now until probably end of September...
> 
> Ta-da! So I promised a year ago that we'd talk about Jun and Jihoon! And well here's a tidbit. :D And what is this 'true war' Jun is alluding to? Find out on the next-er, ten chapters from now! The prologue is ending up to be a lot longer than I thought LOL, but this will be the last of WonHui for a while as they're not gonna travel w/ 97line and Verkwan. So I wanted to kind of build their relationship before we leave them. 
> 
> Once again, thanks for reading!! <3 Thank you to those who've followed for a while now and your words of encouragement always brings a smile to my face! <3 Thank you to those who've just joined up and I hope you've been able to enjoy so far! ^^ My little fanart is a gift to all of y'all! I haven't drawn in forever and I'm warming up to do some more~
> 
> Liz out! (for now lol)

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This will be a compilation of shorts in this universe. I do have a story formulating in me brain, but I don't have time to write this story in its full cohesive state--at least, not for the next 9 months (hah! nope, not pregnant, altho this will be almost as labor intensive). I want to get as much out of my brain before it disappears haha. 
> 
> So most of this just sets up characters, relationships and the world they live in. 
> 
> I will make no promises on whether a full-fledged story will be written based on these shorts! I have learned from previous fandom participation that I pretty much never complete anything longer than a two shot (and even then...sometimes the 2nd part just never comes). 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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